Sophia Cleary
@_sophia_cleary /// www.sophiacleary.com
Studio 263
Embedded Files
I am an interdisciplinary artist focused on performance and liveness. I make my work through the lens of the fool, and I use play as a method and critical position to engage my viewer in a system where power dynamics necessarily shift.
In my live performance work, I focus on the space between myself and my audience. This space is an aperture that restricts or expands – I use humor as a lubricant to mirror, respond to, or disrupt the status quo. In my current work, I tease out the theatricality embedded in disciplinary systems that control and condition the body.
From readymades to monologues, my work addresses the stakes of live performance and lays bare its attending contracts and procedures.
Sophia is a second-year MFA in the Visual Arts department. She holds an MA in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts and a BA in Dance and Art History from Marlboro College. She has presented her work internationally in Scotland at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in New York City at the Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project, The Chocolate Factory, Dixon Place, The Kitchen, and e-flux, and in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum, MoCA, REDCAT, and Human Resources Gallery. She is the founder and coordinator of works-in-progress performance series REHEARSAL, where she has advised over 75 performing artists about their work.
Sophia regularly collaborates and performs with Cruel Babes, an ensemble directed by John Gilkey, founder of The Idiot Workshop. Over the past several years she has also had the chance to perform with Neal Medlyn, Bob Kil and Nina Beier, Vanessa Anspaugh and Amber Bemak, Alexandra Bachzetsis, and Ann Liv Young. She is also one-half of feminist punk band Penis, a collaboration with Samara Davis.
Table Read, 2025
Page updated
Report abuse