What is "nadja"

Nadja may refer to:

• Nadja (given name)
• Nadja (novel), 1928 surrealist novel by André Breton
• Nadja (film), 1994 vampire film by Michael Almereyda
• Nadja (band), Canadian drone doom metal side project of Aidan Baker

Nadja is a 1994 film directed by Michael Almereyda starring Elina Löwensohn as Nadja and Peter Fonda as Van Helsing. As the character's names suggest, Nadja is a vampire film, but treating elements of the genre in an understated arthouse style.

Nadja (1928), the second novel published by André Breton, is one of the iconic works of the French surrealist movement. It begins with the question, "Who am I?"

It is based on Breton's actual interactions with a young woman, Nadja (actually Léona Camile Ghislaine Delacourt 1902–1941), over the course of ten days, and is presumed to be a semi-autobiographical description of his relationship with a mad patient of Pierre Janet. The book's non-linear structure is grounded in reality by references to other Paris surrealists such as Louis Aragon and 44 photographs.

The last sentence of the book ("Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all") provided the title for Pierre Boulez's flute concerto ...explosante-fixe....

Dating from 1960, the widely available English translation by Richard Howard is a translation of the first edition of Breton's novel, dating from 1928. Breton published a second, revised edition in 1964. No English translation of this second edition is currently available.

Nadja is a duo of Aidan Baker (guitars/vocals/piano/woodwinds/drums) and Leah Buckareff (bass/vocals). Nadja began in 2003 as a solo project for Baker to explore the heavier/noisier side of his experimental/ ambient music performed mainly on the electric guitar. In 2005 Buckareff joined in order to make the project more than just a studio endeavour and to allow Nadja to perform live.

The duo combines soundscape, electronics and atmospheric vocals with slow, epic riffs and dirge-like percussion, creating a slowly moving grand wall of music that has been described as drone, ambient-doom, and shoegazer-metal. Aidan noted that they prefer to call their style of music "ambient metal" or "ambient doom", though he's fond of the term "dreamsludge" as well.

After several limited edition CD-R releases on various small labels worldwide, Nadja released its first official album Truth Becomes Death on Montreal's Alien8 Recordings in 2005. The duo has since released material on wider distributed labels and went through re-releasing older recordings either remastered or completely re-arranged, such as the newer Touched 2007 version back on Alien8 or the Bodycage album on Profound Lore Records/LP version on Equation.

They have performed in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Japan and the United States, sharing the stage with, among others, artists as Kayo Dot, Knurl, Khanate, Francisco López, Isis, thisquietarmy, BHUTAN drone, stilte, Dronevil and Mare.

The band's name comes from Aidan's name spelled backwards in order to match the concept of a musical style different from his own work. The J replacing the I is, according to Aidan, a reference to the Nadja character from André Breton's book of the same name and Elina Löwensohn's character from the vampire movie.

Nadja is a feminine given name. Notable people with the name include:

• Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, US violinist
• Nadja Peulen, German bass guitarist for Coal Chamber
• Nađa Higl, Serbian swimmer
• Nadja Benaissa, German singer, member of No Angels
• Nadja Käther, German track and field athlete
• Nadja Sieger (*1967), Swiss comedian

Fictional characters:

• Nadja, main character of the 1928 surrealist novel Nadja by André Breton
• Nadja, the main character of the anime Ashita no Nadja
• Nadja Nilsson, a fictional character in the Bert diaries