12 Minutes Max

12 Minutes Max is a monthly experimental performance series featuring short works by local artists in many disciplines.

One Sunday a month, we present three original pieces in a varied mix, chosen from music, dance, film, theater, performance art, writing, and the like — each 12 minutes or less. The whole event is short and sweet, taking about an hour.

Following each event, we serve coffee and cookies in an informal gathering, a chance for conversation with the artists.

We welcome Junior Mint Prince, an experimental duo consisting of Provo musician Lula Asplund and Naomi Harrison-Clay from New York City, both nonbinary multimedia artists studying electronic music at Mills College in Oakland, California. They will perform a mix of improvisation and open-score pieces.  They say of their work: “Blurred distinctions of song-form, performative gesture, and open improvisation serve our core interests, drawing influence from a variety of genres including freak folk, electronic, free improv, texture, and drone music. We also love to incorporate elements of poetry, humor, theatricality, and political satire in our work. We generally perform using various combinations of instrumentation ranging from homemade contact mic'd found object instruments, voice processed through Max MSP, electric guitar, saxophone, and synthesizers.”

Local documentary filmmaker Travis Low will present an excerpt of his favorite documentary film ever made, his friend Bill Daniel's Who Is Bozo Texino? The subterranean and uniquely American folkloric practice of hobo and rail worker graffiti is discovered in this gritty and picaresque artist-made film. Who is Bozo Texino? ostensibly chronicles a search for the story behind a legendary boxcar graffiti -- a simple sketch of a blank-staring cowboy character with the scrawled moniker “Bozo Texino.” Shot over the course of 16 years of trips across the West at considerable risk from speeding freight trains and in secret hobo jungles, Daniel and his trusty Bolex 16mm camera interviews some of the last remaining old timers who kept the folk art of "monikers" alive. Texas-born, San Francisco exiled, and confirmed tramp, Bill Daniel continues to experiment with survivalism and bricolage in his attempts to record and report on the various social margins he finds himself in. Currently based on the Texas gulf coast, Daniel divides his time between Texas and touring.

Musician and composer Neil Thornock will present his composition for solo marimba Quantasy, performed by Stephen L. Hughes. Quantasy derives from "quantum fantasy." Thornock says “Think of quantum leaps or quantum entanglement or the quanta absorbed and emitted by active electrons. This piece was originally written for bass flute, but it lives much better as a marimba solo.” As a musician, Neil Thornock writes much of his music for his own performances as organist, keyboardist, and carillonneur. He teaches composition and theory at Brigham Young University. Percussionist Hughes is also an author, composer and private instructor, as well as acting as an artist/consult for percussion at several Utah Band programs.

This program is modeled after 12 Minutes Max, a performance laboratory originated by On the Boards in Seattle.

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