The (Virtual) Return of 12 Minutes Max
This Sunday, June 21 (Father’s Day!), before you’ve had your coffee, read the paper and head out for a hike or a pedal, set a phone alert for 2 p.m. to catch the creatively adaptive return of 12 Minutes Max.
For the uninitiated, 12 Minutes Max (12MM) is a curated monthly performance series, presented by the Salt Lake City Public Library, featuring new works and works-in-progress by three local artists in dance, music, film, theater or writing. Inspired by Seattle’s On the Boards, Jason Rabb and Paul Reynolds (librarians by trade, artists by passion) launched 12MM at Salt Lake City’s Main Library six years ago. “We’ve done the curating for 12 Minutes Max by invitation mainly and by asking for recommendations from locals who understand the experimental nature of the program,” Rabb says.
Monthly 12MM events were, up until the pandemic, held at the Main Branch’s Nancy Tessman Auditorium. But, like 95 percent of live performances worldwide, 12MM went on an abrupt hiatus in March 2020. Sunday’s virtual revival, available with this Vimeo link, will feature pre-recorded performances by local artists Molly Heller, Dave Madden and Kohl Glass. A live Q&A session with the artists via chat will follow each performance.
A little about this month’s 12MM artists:
Molly Heller will present Finding, a dance solo that loops patterns and re-threads monotony. Structured from a collection of heart idioms, this work physicalizes the attempt to find connection with one’s surroundings. Relentlessness. Restlessness. Repetitiveness. This solo softens desire and attempts to welcome intimacy during a time when this might feel impossible. Finding, with a score by composer Michael Wall, was recently a part of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center & Dance Up Close/East Bay’s presentation From One to Many: Six Solos Shared. Molly is the director of Heartland, a multi-disciplinary collective based in Salt Lake City, with collaborators in dance, visual arts, and music. She is also an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at the University of Utah. Molly currently dances with Joanna Kotze, Katie Faulkner and Arletta Anderson.
Musician and journalist Dave Madden (aka nonnon) will present One to Four of Thirteen Voices for Eleven Minutes (for semi-modular synthesizer and laptop), about which he says “… I’m going to wrangle, listen to, guide, silence, and also allow these wild machines to do whatever they want in under 12 minutes. The goal is to create an environment both you and I have never (or rarely) heard, though – sorry! – one that will be selfishly aimed at trying to impress myself with discoveries of combinations of disparate circuits. When I hit that New spot, my tell is long pauses. Watch for it and see if we have the same taste.” Dave has a Master’s Degree in Composition from BYU and has spent the last twenty years writing, performing, gathering sounds and scoring experimental award-winning video productions as part of the Nowhere Mountain Collective with photographer Mark Regester.
Film director and screenwriter Kohl Glass had the idea for his 12MM contribution, a film short entitled Gruff, years ago as a film student at BYU, having just read Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and a number of fairy tales at the same time. “It dawned on me how the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff could be told as a story of waiting, specifically waiting out of fear of something that may or may not actually be there.” Glass is a passionate and experienced filmmaker known for his strong, visual style and creative originality. Early on, his senior film, Der Ostwind, was chosen to be an Official Selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. He has since directed three feature films: Orc Wars (aka Dragonfyre), of which a bootlegged version has had more than 14 million views on YouTube; You May Now Kill the Bride (MarVista), which premiered on Lifetime to a reported 1.2 million viewers; and most recently, Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter for Top Dead Center Films. In 2012, Kohl wrote The Generations Project episode “Natalie,” which won an Emmy. Originally from Arizona and raised in Colorado, Kohl currently lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and daughter.
“We intend to keep doing the livestream version of 12 Minutes Max until we are able to present it again to an audience in the auditorium at the Main Library,” Reynolds says. At least for now, 12 Minutes Max will be held virtually on the third Sunday of every month at 2 p.m. Look for livestream link on the City Library’s website in the top graphic slider.
Written by Melissa Fields