PERFECT LIVES: A Screening to Benefit Roulette
About This Event
PERFECT LIVES: A Screening to Benefit Roulette brings the individual project PERFECT LIVES to Roulette in support of the venue. Working within a classical frame and with a small online footprint, the project favors structural clarity and measured pacing over spectacle, so the screening foregrounds material and temporal shape rather than theatrical display.
About Perfect Lives
Robert Ashley’s *Perfect Lives* is a seven-part television opera from 1983, shaped as much by editing and framing as by music. Built from spoken text, repeating patterns, and fixed structures, it treats everyday American scenes as material for a composed narrative rather than theater. In New York, Ashley’s work became a touchstone for downtown artists testing what “opera” could mean outside the house, and its later home-video releases helped it circulate beyond a one-time broadcast. Its calm insistence on pacing over display is its quiet provocation.
About the Artist
PERFECT LIVES
PERFECT LIVES is an individual artist working in a classical frame, with a profile that currently reflects a small online footprint. In New York City, their work appears in connection with Roulette, a venue known for presenting contemporary performance and experimental music.