About DJ Barbara Pleaser

Barbara Pleaser (b.1997) is a DJ pseudonym of Karina Sokowati; they will be playing our Balispirit Festival opening set on Wednesday May 7th, starting at approximately 9pm.

“Euphoric, Energetic and Sentimental Sounds”

Karina Sokowati (dia/they) was born in Balikpapan, August 8, 1997 in Indonesia of Javanese, Sundanese, and Minangkabau ethnicities.  Karina is a neurodivergent transmasculine femme-presenting multidisciplinary artist. As a multidisciplinary artist they work within the fields of Indonesian traditional and contemporary dance, performance art, as a queerpunk vocalist and composer in a band named Bananach, and a practitioner on film and theatre production. 

Karina started DJ-ing in 2015 for their sound art installation research and has been playing internationally ever since. They are an activist in Bandung with their anarcho-queer punk band, Bananach since 2014.

Other than DJ-ing, they are also have many other occupancies for a living such as Performance Artist, Choreographer, Film & Stage Assistant Director, and sometimes teaches Ecstatic Dance Teacher, and Theater Mentor in indigenous regions across Indonesia.

In 2021, Karina moved from Bandung to Bali, in search of a better environment for their being where their existence is recently being illegalized in their own country last November 2022. Karina also active in the ballroom culture in Bali and an activist for LGBTQIA+ & Women Rights in Indonesia. With the Indonesian Nonbinary Forum, they are practicing community-care around South East Asia in online platforms.

Their DJ mixes are the many range of Ambiance, Trance, hXc, nXc, Speedcore, Drum n Bass/Jungle, World Hardcore, World Bass, and a little bit of Techno and Fast House, with intuitive blends of excerpts from memes, daily conversations that they records, poetry recitations, and euphoric atmosphere of game culture, pop culture and punk culture references — hailing from 80 bpm to 250 bpm.

See their schedule, here.

Connect

Soundcloud: @barbarapleaser

Mixcloud: @barbarapleaser

Instagram: @barbarapleaser