About
Thanushka (Thanu) Yakupitiyage is a Sri Lankan born, Thailand raised activist, cultural organizer, and DJ under the artist moniker “Ushka.” She deejays from the perspective of a dancer, blending a wide range of club music from soca to dancehall, hip hop to south asian rhythms, baltimore/jersey club to baile funk, vogue cuts to kuduro, azonto to afrobeat and more. When she isn’t crafting dancefloor spaces, Ushka is a political and cultural organizer.
She has performed at institutions such as Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, American Museum of Natural History, Rubin Museum, and has put out mixes and done live shows with Discwoman, The Fader, and Boiler Room. She is the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institute 2018-19 artist-in-residence and was selected to be one of 52 artists who will be producing new work for The Shed Open Call in 2019.
Bio
Thanushka (Thanu) Yakupitiyage is a Sri Lankan born, Thailand raised activist, cultural organizer, and DJ under the artist moniker “Ushka.” She moved to the U.S when she was 18 to attend Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. She received her Master of Arts in Communications from UMass Amherst. She’s lived in New York City for almost 10 years, working as a media professional and storyteller in the immigrant rights movement and more recently in the climate justice movement. Thanu’s professional, political, and artistic interests are around (im)migration and she uses mediums including writing, video, and music/audio as an exploration of the everyday lives of brown and black communities from the Global South to the West.
Her artist praxis is in the realm of music - using DJing and electronic music production as a medium to create sound narratives that weave in stories about migration, queer communities, communities of color, and the sounds of the immigrant metropolis. She deejays from the perspective of a dancer, blending a wide range of club music from soca to dancehall, hip hop to south asian rhythms, baltimore/jersey club to baile funk, vogue cuts to kuduro, azonto to afrobeat and more. For the past five years, Ushka has thrown a QT/POC and immigrant-centered global club party with DJ Beto called iBomba. She has performed across the U.S, Mexico, and Canada - including at institutions such as Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, American Museum of Natural History, Rubin Museum, and Toronto's Harbourfront Centre. She has also put out mixes and done live shows with Discwoman, The Fader, and Boiler Room. She is the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institute 2018-19 artist-in-residence and was selected to be one of 52 artists who will be producing new work for The Shed Open Call in 2019. She collaborates and performs frequently with a wide swath of djs and producers including DJ Rupture, Tygapaw, Papi Juice, Uproot Andy, Riobamba, Juliana Huxtable, and many more.
