Compost Clown

Two very special evenings in Sacramento

not just for CCC and COMPOST2026 attendees

Feb 3-4, 2026

A must-see performance for anybody who composts!

Four shows over two special nights during the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's 9th National "Cultivating Community Composting" Forum and the US Composting Council's Annual COMPOST2026 Conference & Tradeshow.

Can you believe THIS exists?

A clown show made for compost people?

Witness Alex Tatarsky transform from jester to harlequin to neighborhood compost activist.

From “one of the most exciting and hilarious performance artists around" (ArtSpace), Compost Clown is a groundbreaking performance that will make you question everything you thought you knew about waste, society, and your landlord's parking spot.

A trained clown and obsessive compost-lover, Alex Tatarsky shares revelations into the territory between humor and humus. Linking American angst over the evil clown to efforts to banish waste, she examines our fears of creatures and substances which suggest transitional, ambiguous, and disordered states.

Contents include the ballad of an unemployed court jester who desires to be a rotting vegetable and a lecture that decays into a heap of dirt.

"A hilarious, finely tuned absurdist"

-- Theater Jones

About the artist

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About the artist
Alex Tatarsky works at the intersection of clowning, performance art, dance-theatre and poetic research. She blends physical presence with metaphor - using decay and compost not just as props but as core material of her art.

Her performances have appeared in leading and underground venues from sprawling art spaces to dank basements alike. Her work explores themes of waste, value, neglect, regeneration and political absurdity: ideas that resonate deeply with the spirit of composting and reclamation.

Instagram: @tartar.biz

Production & Soundscape
The sonic and atmospheric layer of Compost Clown is shaped by light and sound engineer Shane Riley. Together with Alex, Shane creates an immersive environment where compost isn’t just smelt, heard, or imagined but felt. The lighting and sound design wrap the audience in a sensory compost-landscape: shadowy, strange, oddly beautiful and alive.

About the show

About Compost Clown
Compost Clown is less a show and more a ritual: a compost-clown performance born from earth, rot, and reclamation. On stage, artist Alex Tatarsky becomes part jester, part activist, part compost whisperer - a harlequin for the humble and decaying.

Through monologue, physical theatre, dark humour and occasional song she challenges our discomfort with waste, invites laughter at the underbelly of society, and honours the hidden life under our feet. What we throw away becomes compost. What we discard becomes material for transformation.

Exclusive performance during COMPOST2026
We are bringing this show to Sacramento because it's the perfect performance for compost people. Compost Clown speaks to composters, waste-workers and soil lovers in a language beyond science or activism. It reaches into the heart of what composting is about - letting go, trusting decay, finding value in what seems worthless, and celebrating regeneration.