ecstatic-summer-1

2014 River to River Festival lineup (Kaki King, Terry Riley, KiT, People Get Ready, Sergio Mendoza, Susie Ibarra & more)

River to River Festival 2013 (more by Ryan Muir)
RtR

The free River to River Festival returns in 2014 to various outdoor NYC venues from June 19-29 and includes music, dance, theater, visual art, film and “unique participatory experiences.” Some highlights this year include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon happening June 22 at Brookfield Place, Winter Garden (more info), and…

On June 24 at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden, world-renowned string quartet ETHEL is joined by guest guitarist Kaki King to present a special performance of …And Other Stories. The collaboration is anchored by a re-imagining of Bach’s masterful Brandenburg Concerto #6 and includes works from ETHEL’s repertoire by Phil Kline and John Zorn, plus original compositions by Kaki King and the world premiere of a work by Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov composed especially for ETHEL and Kaki King.

Last year’s successful partnership with Original Music Workshop, a new music venue set to open in Brooklyn in 2015, continues with three more “Ex-Situ” concerts of contemporary music in site-specific locations. Curated by composer Paola Prestini, this year’s series is dedicated to the music and influences of master minimalist composer Terry Riley. It begins on June 20 with “Terry Riley and Friends,” a concert featuring works by the composer performed by musicians including his son Gyan Riley, Tracy Silverman and the Young People’s Chorus.

Other notable shows include People Get Ready at North End Way on June 19; Piñata Protest, Kuenta I Tambu (KiT), Helado Negro and SLV at The Uplands, South Street Seaport on June 27; composer/percussionist Susie Ibarra (who just teamed up with Mirah for Ecstatic Music Festival) & Roberto Rodriguez on June 21 at India House (1pm), Peter Minuet Plaza (3pm), and Tear Drop Park (5pm); Sergio Mendoza (Devotchka, Calexico) with La Orkestra and Rey Vellenato Beto Jamiaca on June 29 at The Uplands, South Street Seaport; and more.

Again, all River to River events are free and open to the public. The entire 2014 line-up is listed, with details, below…

RIVER TO RIVER 2014 FULL SCHEDULE:

R2R BASH
June 19, 5-8pm
North End Way
Co-sponsored with Conrad New York, Goldman Sachs, and area restaurants & retailers
Tags: Food, Music, Social

Join LMCC, Goldman Sachs and Conrad New York for a “block party” style event on North End Way. Enjoy discounts at area restaurants and retailers, performances by dance troupe/rock band People Get Ready and activities for the whole family. The event is open to the public and gives attendees a chance to meet the River To River artists and partners and help kick off the 13th annual festival.

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY
EXHIBITION: EMBODIED PRACTICE AND SITE SPECIFICITY

June 20-29: Monday-Friday 12-5pm, Saturdays 10am-5pm, Sundays 12-5pm
LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Tags: Visual Arts, Dance, Theatre, Music, New Media

Trisha Brown: Embodied Practice and Site-Specificity looks closely at the artist’s early work, collaborative practice and relationship to New York City, showing the transformative effect of her performances on audiences and her significant influence on a new generation of artists.

CARABALLO-FARMAN
THE SIGNS OF PARADISE

June 20-29, 8am-8pm
Battery Park
Tags: Visual Arts

Every state in the United States has a town called Paradise. In this towering exhibition, 50 sign posts point to the 50 towns of Paradise–providing direction and mileage, and reflecting on the notion of the quintessential “American dream” and on the pursuit of paradise, freedom and happiness.

EIKO
TWO WOMEN

June 20 & 22, 2pm
LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Tags: Dance

Eiko experiments to create and present a duet with Japanese dancer Tomoe Aihara. Two Women is an experimental performance that focuses on their age difference and explores how two bodies sometimes mirror each other in parts or collide into one.

VANESSA ANSPAUGH
WHAT WAS WASN’T HERE.

June 20 at 3pm
June 21 at 1pm & 3pm
Location TBA
Commissioned by LMCC
Tags: Dance

Inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s The Far Away Nearby and the process of developing this work on Governors Island, Vanessa Anspaugh explores the illusions of separation, relationships and space, and asks how bodies share and lose one another.

ORIGINAL MUSIC WORKSHOP’S EX-SITU SERIES
TERRY RILEY & FRIENDS

June 20 at 7pm
Federal Hall
Tags: Music

Composer Paola Prestini curates the second iteration of the Ex-Situ series and showcases work created and inspired by iconic composer and musician Terry Riley. Experience the work of Riley–often called the “father of minimalism”–and of musicians he has inspired including his son Gyan Riley, Tracy Silverman and the Young People’s Chorus, among others.

PETE M. WYER
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

June 21 at 11am
Location TBA
Co-presented by Make Music New York and Poets House
Tags: Music, New Media

Celebrating the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, And Death Shall Have No Dominion is a “vocamotive choir” participatory event in honor of his famous poem. Using headphones and synchronized mobile devices, participants set off on a 45-minute walk through the city, singing the words of the renowned poet across the landscape of his final days.

STRIJBOS & VAN RIJSWIJK
NEW YORK WALKSCAPE

June 21 at 12pm, 2pm & 4pm
Various Locations TBA
Co-presented by Make Music New York
Tags: Music, New Media

Composed by Dutch composers Strijbos & Van Rijswijk, New York Walkscape is a software-coded iPhone app called “Walk With Me.” As one walks throughout Lower Manhattan, a musical score is unraveled by the physical exploration of the built environment.

SUSIE IBARRA & ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ
DIGITAL SANCTUARIES, NYC

June 21 at 1pm, 3pm, 5pm
Starting Locations: India House (1pm); Peter Minuet Plaza (3pm); Tear Drop Park (5pm)
Commissioned by New Music USA’s Commissioning Music/USA program and presented as part of Make Music New York
RSVP required
Tags: Music, New Media

Digital Sanctuaries, NYC is an urban music mobile app walk that brings 12 sanctuaries of music to 12 historic sites in Lower Manhattan. Experience this virtual pilgrimage through the built environment of a cityscape, and discover meditative spaces in unexpected places, marked by an ever-changing musical score.

ORIGINAL MUSIC WORKSHOP’S EX-SITU SERIES
CLAIRE CHASE & SVET STOYANOV

June 21 at 7pm
Federal Hall
Tags: Music, Visual Arts

Flutist Claire Chase and Bulgarian percussionist Svet Stoyanov collaborate on a new duet called “Alone” by composer Marcos Balter–a music drama based on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. Using acoustic and electronic manipulations of their instruments, voices and physical gestures, Chase and Stoyanov explore facets of loneliness inside a living room built of visual illusions and spatially organized sounds. As the room contracts and expands, the performers face a paradox of human existence realizing that we are both never and always alone. Chase and Stoyanov will also debut a new arrangement of Terry Riley’s Tread on the Trail for a variety of modern flutes including the piccolo, G alto and C bass flutes that will be sampled in real time with a MalletKAT providing percussion.

R2R LIVING ROOM
EPHRAT ASHERIE & HECTOR ARCE-ESPASAS: EVERYDAY I’M HUSTLIN’

June 21, 9-11pm
VBar Seaport
Tags: Music, Dance

For the first time, River To River is programming into the night! Artists, partners and audiences are all invited to come together, socialize and experience after-hours programming at the new R2R Living Rooms–taking place at the newly opened VBar at The Seaport.

Ephrat Asherie and Hector Arce-Espasas present an evening that fuses the iconic hustle dance with a diverse mix of classic and contemporary disco and Latin beats. This is the first collaboration between choreographer Asherie and visual artist and DJ Arce-Espasas who have worked alongside each other since September as participants in LMCC’s Workspace artist residency program.

BANG ON A CAN
MARATHON

June 22, 2-10pm
Brookfield Place, Winter Garden
Co-presented by Arts Brookfield
Tags: Music

Bang on a Can returns with its annual super-mix of boundary-busting music from around the corner and around the world! This year features eight hours of rare performances by some of the most innovative musicians of our time side-by-side with some of today’s most pioneering young artists including Roomful of Teeth, So Percussion, Jherek Bischoff and many more.

Music by:
Louis Andriessen, Armando Bayolo, Jherek Bischoff, Carlos Carrillo, Bryce Dessner, Julius
Eastman & Jace Clayton, Michael Gordon, Judd Greenstein, Brooks Hendrickson, Molly Joyce, David Lang, Paula Matthusen, Marc Mellits, Meredith Monk, Andrew Norman, Caroline Shaw, JG Thirlwell, and Julia Wolfe.

Performances by:
Adrianna Mateo, Anonymous 4, Bang on a Can All-Stars & friends, Bearthoven, Contemporaneous, Dawn of Midi, Great Noise Ensemble, Jace Clayton (aka DJ/rupture) & friends, Jherek Bischoff, Mantra Percussion, Meredith Monk & Theo Bleckmann, Roomful of Teeth, and So Percussion.

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY
IN CONVERSATION: EMBODIED PRACTICE & SITE-SPECIFICITY

June 22 at 4:30pm
LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Tags: Talks, Visual Arts, Dance, Theatre, Music, New Media

Trisha Brown’s principles of choreography and movement will be discussed by art historian Susan Rosenberg, in a talk that illuminates parallels between Brown’s dance ideas and visual art of her time, focusing on major works of the 1970s and 1980s.

ENRICO D WEY
WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW

June 22 at 7pm & 8pm
June 24 at 7:30pm
Pier 15
Tags: Dance

In his where we are right now, enrico d wey explores an endless circuit: the little lives, loves and deaths within each singular, yet insignificant moment–originating as action, and ending as memory.

TERE O’CONNOR
UNTITLED

June 23-25 at 1pm
Elevated Acre
Commissioned by LMCC
Tags: Dance

Tere O’Connor creates a new duet for Michael Ingle and Silas Riener, a work constructed by allowing the lines traced by the dancing body to intersect with those created in space by on-site buildings. The choreographic relationship between human figure and monolith forms the basic structure of this work examining the coexistence of spectacle and anonymity in public spaces.

COLLABORATIONTOWN
IN DEVELOPMENT: STAGED READING OF NEW WORK

June 23 & 26 at 2pm
June 24 at 5pm
LMCC’s studios at One Liberty Plaza, 12th Floor
RSVP required
Tags: Theatre, Open Studios

CollaborationTown presents staged readings of two new pieces in development: Henry IV written by Geo Decas O’Donnell and The Fun Pain written by Jordan Seavey. Henry IV follows one man’s obsession with Hamlet and how his mania affects his surrounding world. The Fun Pain chronicles two sisters living in the South.

AYA OGAWA
LUDIC PROXY

June 23 at 5pm, June 25 at 2pm, June 27 at 4pm
LMCC’s studios at One Liberty Plaza, 12th floor
RSVP required
Tags: Theatre, Open Studios

Inspired by the horrific devastation following the 2011 Japanese earthquake, Ludic Proxy by Aya Ogawa is a multi-lingual, multi-media play exploring the tenuous line between memory, reality and fantasy as experienced through a lens of three narratives: Nostalgia, Virtual Reality and The Future Age.

ORIGINAL MUSIC WORKSHOP’S EX-SITU SERIES
KIMMO POHJONEN & JEFFREY ZEIGLER

June 23 at 7pm
Pier 15
Tags: Music

Inspired by the lure of Aokigahara–long associated with demons and spirits in Japanese mythology, and in recent years a popular place for suicides–innovative Finnish accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen and former Kronos Quartet cellist Jeffrey Zeigler collaborate to weave a potent and energetic musical tapestry rife with hope, faith and resignation.

SOULEYMANE BADOLO
, OF HISTORY (VIRGULE DE L’HISTOIRE)

June 24 at 3pm
June 25 at 1pm & 5pm
John Street Church Courtyard
Commissioned by LMCC
Tags: Dance

Souleymane Badolo’s , of history (Virgule de l’histoire) is a dance about the effect of external events in shaping one’s vision and re-defining self-image. It is about the process of transformation that comes from accepting circumstances that are often beyond our control. In this dance, Badolo finds happiness through the various twists and turns that have led to new influences and different outcomes than imagined.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUMS
June 24, 4-8pm
Various Locations, see website for details
Tags: Visual Arts

Enjoy free admission at 13 distinctive museums and historic sites in Lower Manhattan as part of the 2014 River To River Festival. Discover where New York City’s history and culture begin.

Night at the Museum participants:
African Burial Ground National Monument
The Anne Frank Center USA
Federal Hall National Memorial
Fraunces Tavern Museum
Museum of American Finance
Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
National Archives at New York City
National Museum of the American Indian–Smithsonian Institution
National September 11 Memorial Museum
9/11 Tribute Center
The Skyscraper Museum
South Street Seaport Museum
Wall Street Walks

ETHEL WITH SPECIAL GUEST KAKI KING
…AND OTHER STORIES

June 24 at 7:30pm
Brookfield Place, Winter Garden
Co-presented by Arts Brookfield
Tags: Music

Known worldwide for transcending the limits of tradition, the string quartet ETHEL presents an epic oeuvre of musical styles and sounds. Brought together with virtuoso guitarist Kaki King–who has won an enthusiastic international following–these celebrated artists collide to create a memorable evening of sound.

REGGIE WILSON
…MOSES(ES)

June 25 at 2:45pm
June 26 at 1:45pm & 3:45pm
St. Cornelius Chapel, Governors Island
Co-commissioned by New England Foundations for the Arts’ National Dance Project, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and LMCC
Tags: Dance

In …Moses(es) Wilson asks: how do we lead and why do we follow? He examines the multiple iterations of Moses as represented in religious texts, and his place in the mythical, canonical and ethnographic imaginations, exploring questions and expectations in our relationship to leaders and leadership.

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY
I’M GOING TO TOSS MY ARMS–IF YOU CATCH THEM THEY’RE YOURS

Open Rehearsal: June 25 at 7pm
Performance: June 26 at 7pm
Pier 15
Tags: Dance

I’m going to toss my arms–if you catch them they’re yours premiered in October 2011 at Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris with sold-out performances for a two-week run. It was met with enthusiastic critical praise in both Paris and Rome and for its New York City premiere at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in 2013. Now, Trisha Brown’s piece de resistance is re-imagined for audiences on the East River Waterfront.

R2R LIVING ROOM
MIKE IVESON/DJ HOTEL SCAMPI

June 25, 9-11pm
VBar Seaport
Tags: Music, Dance

For the first time, River To River is programming into the night! Artists, partners and audiences are all invited to come together, socialize and experience after-hours programming at the new R2R Living Rooms–taking place at the newly opened VBar at South Street Seaport.

DJ Hotel Scampi spikes absurdly danceable music from contemporary times with occasional forays into his extensive collection of Dutch dance pop from the years 1974-1987, otherwise known as Nederpop or Dutch Dance Dirt.

WALLY CARDONA & JENNFIER LACEY
THE SET UP: I NYOMAN CATRA

June 26 at 5pm
June 27 & 28 at 1pm
Location TBA
Commissioned by LMCC
Tags: Dance

The Set Up: I Nyoman Catra is the fifth installment of an eight-part series. The Set Up is a multi-year project devised by Wally Cardona, made in collaboration with choreographer Jennifer Lacey, and an international assembly of dance-artists viewed as “masters” of their form, operating in their own culturally informed aesthetic.

THE 22ND ANNUAL POETS HOUSE SHOWCASE OPENING
June 26, 5:30-8:30pm
Poets House
Co-presented by Poets House
Tags: Writing/Literature

Poets House presents the 22nd annual Poets House Showcase, a free exhibit featuring all of the new poetry books and poetry-related texts published in the United States in a single year from over 650 commercial, university and independent presses. This diverse and inclusive exhibition will be on view through August 2, 2014.

MARIA HASSABI
PREMIERE

June 27 at 3pm
June 28 at 3pm & 5pm
Bowling Green
Commissioned by LMCC
Tags: Dance

Through Hassabi’s sculpturesque approach to movement and extended duration, PREMIERE continuously exposes process, calling attention to the present moment. Keeping the aliveness of the form at the forefront of each individual encounter, the work will reflect on the human experience as an ongoing process.

PIÑATA PROTEST, KUENTA I TAMBU (KIT), HELADO NEGRO & SLV
FRONTERAS: NEW & OLD SOUNDS FROM LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

June 27, 4-9:30pm
The Uplands, South Street Seaport
Co-presented by Isabel Soffer / Live Sounds
Tags: Music

Punk rock-y-roll band Piñata Protest is a bilingual accordion-fronted quartet that believes that old school punk rock and old-school Latin border music can be fused into something modern and loud. Their sound has been dubbed “ranchero punk” with songs that target the adversities and emptiness of modern life.

Based in Amsterdam, Caribbean Carnival revelers Kuenta i Tambu (KiT) are a riot of beats and rhythms who’ve transformed the traditional tambú music of Curaçao into the 21st-century phenomenon of Tambutronic or global bass. A wild and colorful explosion of energy, the band has cleverly found a balance between electronic sound samples, song, chant and the infectious rhythms played by ritual tambú drums. The name Kuenta i Tambu translates to “Stories and Drums” from Papiamentu, which is the native language of the Dutch Caribbean islands Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire.

Helado Negro, one of many musical projects of Roberto Carlos Lange, is an ethereal electronica project that reflects 21st-century Latin America. Pounding bass beats from passing cars, boom boxes bouncing down the block, late-night parties and the rich sounds and colors of the various Latino cultures of Southern Florida where he was born provides a foundation for Lange’s interest in sound. The atmospheric haze and low-tempo beats set a beautiful backdrop for Helado Negro’s dreamy echoed vocals.

The moody, intensely personal pop songs of multi-instrumentalist/songwriters Sandra Lilia
Velásquez and Sean Dixon’s new project SLV have a subtle electronic edge. Velasquez is the
founder of the acclaimed Latin band Pistolera, which released three studio albums and toured
extensively in the U.S. and abroad. Sean Dixon is the drummer for the experimental electronic
band Zammuto. Together the pair recorded the SLV debut EP Dig Deeper, produced by ten-time
Grammy nominee and legendary bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, who plays bass on three of the
songs and co-wrote one.

MARIA HASSABI, PAOLO JAVIER & KANEZA SCHAAL
IN CONVERSATION

June 27, 7-9:00pm
Poets House
Co-presented by Baryshnikov Arts Center and Poets House
Tags: Talks, Dance, Poetry, Theatre

In conjunction with the site-based presentation of Maria Hassabi’s dance performance PREMIERE at Bowling Green, Hassabi is joined at Poets House by Paolo Javier and Kaneza Schaal–artists working in poetry and theatre respectively and each of whom also blurs the lines between disciplines in various ways–in a conversation about the relationship between word, image and movement.

OPEN STUDIOS WITH LMCC’S ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
June 28-29, 12-5pm
LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Tags: Visual Arts, Dance, Theatre, Music, New Media

Join us for Open Studios with Process Space artists-in-residence at Governors Island! Visit with visual and performing artists and writers who have been working at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island since March. The weekend will feature behind-the-scenes access to 20 multi-disciplinary artists’ studios.

ROBERT KOCIK & DARIA FAIN:
UBIQUITOUS DIVIDEND: A DAY-LONG CELEBRATION OF ROBERT KOCIK’S SUPPLE SCIENCE

June 28, 2-5pm (workshop), 6-8pm (performance)
Poets House
Co-presented by Poets House
Tags: Performing Arts, Social Practice

Poets House presents an afternoon workshop and performance celebrating the works of poet and prosodist Robert Kocik through a variety of disciplines–poetics, visual art, performance, architecture, disability studies, design, medicine, economics, politics–to explore what Kocik calls the “sore, over-sensitive, insecure, and supple sciences.”

OKWUI OKPOKWASILI
BRONX GOTHIC: THE OVAL

June 28 & 29 at 3pm
LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Co-commissioned by Danspace Project, LMCC, and Performance Space
Tags: Performance Art, Dance, Theatre

Bronx Gothic reveals an impassioned story of coming of age as notes are surreptitiously passed between two school girls at the tender age of 11. Enacted as a solo, Okpokwasili casts a gripping performance that sheds light on harrowing issues of self esteem, body image and sex amid a susceptible moment in a young girl’s life.

BÉLO & CURUPIRA
FRONTERAS: NEW & OLD SOUNDS FROM LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

June 28, 5:30-9pm
The Uplands, South Street Seaport
Co-presented by Isabel Soffer / Live Sounds
Tags: Music

Haiti’s outspoken groove innovator BélO has been hailed as the island’s musical ambassador to the world. The globally informed singer, songwriter and guitarist interweaves Afro-Caribbean Haitian traditions with jazz, rock and reggae alongside a progressive voice for social and political transformation into what he calls “Ragganga.”

Bogota-based Curupira are a groundbreaking group who perform an original style of music they call “funklorica.” They are known for incorporating traditions like gaita, chalupa, fandango and champeta from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the eastern plains of Colombia with contemporary urban sounds including rap, rock, funk and classical Indian music.

SERGIO MENDOZA Y LA ORKESTA & REY VALLENATO BETO JAMAICA
FRONTERAS: NEW & OLD SOUNDS FROM LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

June 29, 1:30-5pm
The Uplands, South Street Seaport
Co-presented by Isabel Soffer / Live Sounds
Tags: Music

The 1950s funky big-band indie mambo and cumbia sound of Sergio Mendoza y La Orkesta is led by keyboardist, guitarist and vocalist Sergio Mendoza (Devotchka and Calexico), and features the rich baritone of Mexican vocalist Salvador Duran (who dueted with Willie Nelson on “Señor” in the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There).

The King of Colombian vallenato and cumbia music, Beto Jamaica, makes his New York debut performing ecstatic accordion-fronted dance party music from the Caribbean coast. Since earning his “Rey” title at the prestigious Leyenda Vallenata Festival, Beto has become one of Colombia’s most beloved artists and contemporary musicians.

ON VIDEO: NEW YORK CLOSE-UP
June 29 at 4:30pm
LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island
Tags: Visual Arts, Dance, Theatre, Music, New Media

A screening of videos featuring current participants in and recent alumni from LMCC’s artist residency programs. Art21’s New York Close Up series is devoted to artists in the first decade of their professional careers, living and working in New York City. Featured artists are Martha Colburn, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Liz Magic Laser, Mary Mattingly, Shana Moulton and Jacolby Satterwhite.