Anastasia Clarke is a 2020 Roulette Van Lier Fellow
In the first of two evening-length concerts this fall, Anastasia Clarke offers a long-form experimental therapeutic listening experience using crystal singing bowls, nature field recordings, computer, and hardware electronics. The composer explores a practitioner approach to healing with the crystal bowls’ stable, pure tones while also playfully exploring their interactions with noise and chaotic textures in an idiosyncratic voice.
Listeners at home are encouraged to experience the work laying down or in a comfortable meditative position, with eyes closed or blindfolded. The work is intended as a treatment for calming the nervous system and is best experienced before sleep.
Clarke’s first fellowship performance was originally scheduled for Spring 2020, but was postponed and rescheduled due to Covid-19. Roulette’s Fall season will be presented virtually and available for free on a variety of streaming platforms. Our theater is currently closed for public performances as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the safety measures that Roulette has put in place to keep staff, artists, and the public safe.
Anastasia Clarke is a New York-based composer, performer, and audio technologist working in live embodied electronic music performance. Her sprawling custom instrument-interfaces and deliberately confusing sound performing systems make theatre out of human-instrument interaction; therapy out of earnest sound exploration; and jokes out of the impossibility of ever understanding exactly what is going on. In addition to custom electronics, monologues, movement, and the destruction and repurposing of sound-generating materials figure heavily into Anastasia’s whimsical sonic textures, guiding performers and audiences into complex plays of attention without any hand-holding.
Clarke’s work is performed in galleries, concert halls, DIY venues and unsuspecting community spaces across the United States. Clarke has also engaged audiences through speaking and pedagogy, most recently at Cycling ’74’s Expo ’74, NIME 2018, The School for Poetic Computation, and various colleges and universities. Clarke earned an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College in 2018, and has received support for subsequent work and research from the Queens Arts Fund, EMS (Stockholm), CCRMA, and a 2020 Van Lier Fellowship at Roulette.
Anastasia Clarke is a Roulette 2020 Van Lier Fellow, made possible with funds provided by the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust. This performance is presented through Roulette’s GENERATE program, providing over 30 artists each year with in-depth creative and technical support.
