Ben Frost’s music is not just heard; it’s felt. Influenced by classical minimalism as well as punk rock and metal, he creates monolithic sounds that command attention through their visceral intensity. Keenly aware of listeners’ thresholds, Frost exploits every extreme of pitch and volume as he pushes the sound of electric guitars, drums, and laptops out from a wall of speakers and amps. As the music unfolds, overlapping layers and elongated structural forms emerge from within the encompassing sonic space.
For this performance, Frost gives an exclusive preview of material that is being developed for his next studio album.

The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) Studio 1–Goodman. Tickets are $18 (discounted tickets available). For more information, go to empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/ben-frost.

Brian Rogers/The Chocolate Factory:
Hot Box
Friday & Saturday, February 15 & 16

Hot Box is loud, dark, foggy, sweaty, and very live.

Hot Box draws inspiration from a cinematic vocabulary—pans, zooms, cuts, etc.—while attempting to find a sustained stillness in an uncomfortable environment. Inspired by films like Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo, a live performance situation is constructed that is violent and chaotic; and from that chaos, it attempts to compose a sequence of video images that are quiet, sustained, focused, and organized.

Conceived, directed, and performed by Chocolate Factory artistic director Brian Rogers, Hot Box is a companion piece to his Bessie-nominated 2010 performance Selective Memory. Where Selective Memory was extremely clean and minimalist in its approach, Hot Box is noisy and messy.

Brian Rogers is a director, video artist, co-founder, and artistic director of the Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens. Since 1997, Rogers has conceived and/or directed numerous large-scale performances at the Chocolate Factory and elsewhere.

The performance begins at 8 p.m. in the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) Studio 1 – Goodman. Tickets are $18 (discounted tickets available). For more information, go to empac.rpi.edu/events/2013/spring/hot-box.