Les Reines Prochaines

Swiss Feminist Performance Art and Music Collective

In 1987 as Les Reines des Couteaux (the queens of the knives), Muda Mathis, Teresa Alonso and Regina Florida Schmid showed their first performance in a underground space in Basel. It was all about political statements, rebellion against the bourgeois society and, last but not least, about feminist aesthetics and action. All of the founders are visual artists, and created music by chopping vegetables for a soup, singing and some synthesizer sounds. One year later they continued as Les Reines Prochaines, creating music and multimedia-performances with new members associated with the group: Fränzi Madörin and Pipilotti Rist. Since then Les Reines Prochaines are on tour with changing group members, but held by a strong core. The present line-up is: Michèle Fuchs, Fränzi Madörin, Muda Mathis and Sus Zwick. Almost all of them learned to play their instruments just by joining the group. „The use of music as a medium is just as important to us as the performance itself and the visual environment. This mixture gives us the freedom to cross cultural borders and categories of the various arts“. Over the years, creating shows and music have developed in their own personal style – sometimes they would call it professional dilettantism.