CLARKE, Ronnie

Caanda

7a*mgr8 (2025-26 edition)

Ronnie Clarke, Future Dances Dancemakers and FADO Performance Art Centre 2025 VIDEO STILL

Islet
Launched January 7, 2026

Islet is a sound and performance-based work that was filmed and took place on Ward’s Island Beach. This project responds to waters/edge (2019), a performance and sound work by Robin Poitras. A performer gathers sand from the beach and slowly scatters it onto a vibrating carbon-fibre plate speaker that is playing a sound piece composed of altered recordings from waters/edge. As the sound plays, the performer continuously gathers more sand. The sand is distributed into fleeting, visual patterns on the surface of the speaker. The initial performance of Islet was performed by Fataba Kakulatombo and documented by Chelsea Brimstin.

Notes on Process

I created the sound score for this piece by sampling a recording from waters/edge, in which performers move wearing sets of heavy bells. A combination of the performers’ movements and wind on the shores of Lake Ontario work together to ring the bells, creating a series of moving, shimmering sound recordings. When I first heard these recordings, I was really interested in visualizing and exploring the body’s capacity as an instrument. Robin’s work struck me as a very satisfying and physical way of making sound, noise and music. In my reinterpretation, I aimed to give new textures to these recordings and explore the connections between composition, performance and nature, while playfully investigating sound and movement.

I abstracted the source recordings by first experimenting with playing different frequencies through the speaker plate. Using a combination of software, I roughly extracted the source data so that the bell sounds could be loosely interpreted as notes, converting it into something that could be played by a digital instrument. My process mixed experimentation with the layering of different synths to create resonant sound that could be translated into visual patterns. Similar to the ways in which wind shaped Robin’s work, I found that the breeze off the lake would dance across the speaker’s surface, shifting and marking some of the images we were making.

Ronnie Clarke is a movement and sound artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. Her work blends elements of choreography, dance, movement, collaboration, video and installation. Clarke is interested in how language manifests, becomes translated and is mediated in the digital age. With an interest in the poetics of digital gestures, spaces and interfaces, she often uses movement to investigate how technology plays a role in our interactions with others. Recent projects include a commissioned public performance work for the Parkette Projects (Toronto, 2021) with Gallery TPW and a group exhibition at the University of Texas at Austin (2023/2024). She holds a BFA from The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

Instructions for viewing:

Please play sound file while browsing performance documentation (photo and video) below.

Islet

Equipment sits on two sandy-cloured cloths on a stretch of sand. On one elevated piece of cloth lays a flat, square speaker. Black wires lead from the speaker to a second piece of cloth. One wire connects to a partially open Mac airbook. The second wire extends beyond the frame of the image.

Two cloths with equipment sit on a sandy shoreline. In the distance is a stretch of water. One on cloth sits a partially open Mac airbook and what may be a power source. Both items are connected by black wires to a flat speaker, placed horizontally in an elevated position on the second piece of cloth.

A flat speaker sits on a piece of cloth above the sand, raised from below by an open wire cube discernible in silhouette through the cloth. A tall clear glass pitcher sits nearby in the sand. Part of a human figure is oriented away from the cloth and the pitcher, moving toward the shoreline in the distance.

The flat speaker is shot in close range from above. A pattern of sand covers its surface.

The same scene of the equipment on the cloths on the beach with the clear glass pitcher nearby. This view shows the lake and the horizon line of the sky. A human figure, dressed in black, is on their hands and knees on one of the cloths, adjusting what may be a receiver or power source. A second figure stands closer to the water, arms raised above their waist and hands loosely reaching outward.

Another view of the equipment on the cloth on the sand and the glass pitcher, with the lake horizon in the background. A human figure dressed in dark clothes stands on one foot, leaning slightly to one side.

A human figure dressed in dark clothes, their face obscured by a hood, walks along the sand, facing away from the water.

A pair of outstretched hands drops bits of sand onto the flat speaker.

A human figure dressed in dark clothes and a hood drops sand onto the flat speaker.

A pair of outstretched hands, with rings on some of the fingers, hovers above the flat speaker, which has a thin layer of sand patterned primarily in the centre.

A human figure dressed in dark clothes holds their outstretched hands above the speaker. The image is framed so that their face is cut off, drawing emphasis to the trickle of sand flowing from the clasped hands onto the speaker. The glass pitcher is visible in the background.

A close up image of two hands pouring sand onto the flat speaker.

Another close-up image of two hands pouring sand onto the flat speaker.

A close up image of arms above the speaker. One hand rests on the wrist of the other arm, perhaps trying to brush sand from the surface of the fingers and palm. The patter of sand on the speaker has a geometric pattern, with a circle and several arc shapes clearly visible.

A black female figure dressed in dark clothes and a hood stands, visible from the waist up, hand and arms outstretched toward the sky.

The flat speaker is visible in the foreground, with the glass pitcher nearby. Behind, closer to the shoreline, a figure dressed in dark clothes and a hood crouches, their hands buried in a small mound of sand.

Part of a human figure is visible, holding the clear glass pitcher, which is full of sand. The pitcher is tilted almost to pouring, and the fingers of one hand are reaching into the sand as if to pull some of it out.

A figure dressed in dark clothes and a hood bends over the flat speaker, holding the titled glass pitcher filled with sand, reaching in with one hand to pull some of the sand out onto the speaker.

A close-up image shot from above of two hands joined together, holding sand between them.. positioned above impressions in the beach ground where the sand was scooped up.

A close up image shot from above of the tall clear glass pitcher filled with sand, sitting beside impressions where the sand was scooped up.

A dark figure in dark clothes stands with their arms outstretched above their shoulders. They stand backlit against the lake, so their features are not visible. Beside them sits the clear glass pitcher filled with sand.

https://www.ronnieclarke.com