Daniela Lalita

Biography

Daniela Lalita (Spanish pronunciation: [daˈnjela laˈlita]); born 1992 as Daniela Czenstochowski; (Polish: [t͡ʂɛnstɔˈxɔfski] , Spanish: [t͡ʃenstoˈxawski]) is a Peruvian musician, model, and artist. Around the age of 19, she moved to the United States to study apparel design at the Rhode Island School of Design and did several internships in the fashion industry. She debuted as a model at New York Fashion Week in 2015, then collaborated with Givenchy and Saint Laurent while appearing in international runway shows, magazines, and advertising campaigns. In 2015, Lalita began studying music technology at New York University, where she was mentored by electronic music composer Morton Subotnick. Between 2016 and 2019, she released electronic music tracks on SoundCloud, performed as a DJ, and worked as a performance artist on interdisciplinary projects combining fashion, theater, film, and music. Her work frequently incorporates symbolic and psychological themes. In 2022, she released her debut EP, Trececerotres, which entered the UK Physical Singles Top 100. Music videos were produced for all tracks; Lalita designed the costumes and directed several of the videos. The song "Tenía Razón" was featured on the soundtrack of FIFA 23. Since 2023, she has collaborated with Mura Masa and Ashnikko and has performed at international music festivals. Lalita directed the music video for the single "Tiroteo", which was released in 2026.

== Early life == Daniela Czenstochowski was born in 1992 in Lima, Peru, to Peruvian architect and former actress Pilar Secada and Venezuelan singer-songwriter and producer Ilan Chester. She grew up with her mother and grandmother in Lima. From the ages of five to ten, Czenstochowski worked as a voice-over artist for television commercials and appeared in stage productions. She learned to play the piano as a child and studied ballet until the age of thirteen. Her mother, who had performed with several reggae and fusion bands, including as a chorist in La Liga del Sueño, often took her to musical performances, which had a formative influence on her. Her father, a follower of the Hare Krishna movement, introduced her to meditative kirtan chanting, a spiritual practice rooted in the voice.

== Career ==

=== 2010–2015: Design studies ===

Around the age of 19, Lalita relocated from Lima to the United States to study apparel design at the Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating in 2014, she moved to Manhattan, New York. There, she interned with Sarah Gore-Reeves, the fashion director of Vogue México y Latinoamérica, and learned about the editorial side of the industry. She subsequently worked as a consultant for the fashion brand Eckhaus Latta, assisting in garment production and pattern development. In 2015, she collaborated with fashion designer Titi Guiulfo. Due to her growing interest in music, she applied her knowledge of fashion design to the creation of costumes for performances and music videos.

=== 2014–2018: Interest in music ===

After completing her design studies, Lalita went to the NYU Steinhardt where she studied music technology. Her mentor was Morton Subotnick, a pioneer of electronic music who collaborated with engineer Don Buchla on one of the first analog synthesizers, which Buchla built to Subotnick's specifications. The modular synthesizer, which was named "Buchla" after him, is used by Lalita for her recordings. She recorded her first track, "hmp", in 2014 and released it on SoundCloud in September 2016. The track was later used by director Lena Greene for the commercial work Beauty Papers Magazine X Comme Des Garçons X Ilan Rubin. In the following years, Lalita issued additional electronic music singles on the same platform and occasionally performed as a DJ.

=== 2015–2018: Experiences with film and performance art === In June 2015, Lalita narrated the episode "Daniela & Francesco" (S1 E6) in the TV series R.I.P., which was written and directed by Lena Greene and Lorraine Nicholson. She also collaborated with Coco Campbell on costume design for a stop-motion animated music video trilogy released in November 2015 for producer and DJ Tommy Trash. In February 2016, she provided the voice-over for the promotional film Introducing Fur by Ezra Ewen. In August of the same year, she participated in the Selkie Series with Ser Serpas and Gia Garison under the name "Swarovski Crystal Meth." This was a performance series curated by Alexandra Marzell at the National Sawdust in Brooklyn, presenting multidisciplinary works by emerging artists. Lalita composed music for the piece. In October 2016, she participated in a puppet show in Brooklyn alongside artists such as Rochelle Goldberg, Jacky Connolly, Ficus Interfaith, Martine Fougeron, and Veit Laurent Kurz and curated by Shelby Jackson and Paul Gondry. A puppet created by Lalita was later exhibited at the "Living Content Live" event, which was curated by Adriana Blidaru at Times Square, New York, in October 2018. In October 2017, she presented Madre: A Disruptive Environment in New York, a multimedia performance piece developed in collaboration with choreographer Remy Maelen. She stated that she created this project to combine what she had learnt in apparel design with what she was currently learning in music technology. In Madre, she explores themes related to the archetypes of the "Great Mother", inspired by the work of Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Lalita invited artists, actors, and models such as Grace Hartzel, Carly Mark, Martine Gutierrez, Lida Fox, along with her mother to take part in this work combining elements of fashion, film, theater, music, and visual art. Lalita composed the score for In Order to Endure Sin, the Slave Master Must Invest Capital for Eternity, a short film directed by Andre Bato, which premiered at MoMA PS1 as part of a live performance by Hirakish and was released online by Dazed in November 2017. The following month, she starred in the horror short film Know Nothing, directed by Carly Mark. This film and photographs of her art performance Madre were part of the exhibition Vanquished by the Fickle Goddess, curated by Antonia Marsh and shown in Venice from February to March 2018.