Music
RIVER TO RIVER
The River to River Festival, the nation’s largest free summer-long arts festival, begins its seventh season on May 28. Highlights of the weekend launch include a world premiere performance by the Buglisi Dance Theatre, banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, a 12-hour Bang on a Can Marathon, and British band Wire. Ongoing through mid-September, the festival features family-friendly events, dances, and concerts by Ulrich Schnauss (June 24); jazz vocalist Patti Austin (July 30); Wu Man (Aug. 4); graceful, composer/trumpeter Terence Blanchard (Aug. 7); reclusive rockers Sonic Youth, and others. Weekend launch May 28-June 1. Free. For a full lineup of events through September, check out RiverTorRiverNYC.com.
Spoon performing in Battery Park City at the 2007 River To River festival
Art
PAOLO ROVERSI, “GUINEVERE”
The photographs on view (1996-present) exclusively depict Roversi’s friend and model Guinevere over the past decade. Both abstract meditations on beauty as well as intimate studies, Roversi’s images move beyond the physical facts. The resulting sum of the pictures’ parts is unconventional, often provocative portraits. Like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, Roversi has found success as a fashion photographer and been published in an array of magazines and monographs. May 21-June 14. Pace/MacGill Gallery. 32 E. 57th St. 9th Fl. 212-759-7999, pacemacgill.com.
Stories
YOUR FIRST NYC JOB
The Lower East Side Stories series continues with “Tales of Your First New York City Job.” Many of us come to the city with a hunger to be a star, of course, or do something important, or at least to make some money. What happens after we arrive is an often an entirely different story. Professional storyteller H.R. Britton leads this evening as master storytellers share their own magical, horrible or laugh-out-loud-funny first-job tales. Audience members are also invited to participate, with stories limited to the zippy speed of three minutes. May 28 at 6:30 p.m. Free. Tenement Museum. 108 Orchard St. 212-982-8420, tenement.org.
Photo courtesy Mersy Photo
Poetry
WALK ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
This 13th annual Poetry Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge begins in the park near One Centre Street and stops en route for poetry readings by Martín Espada, Thomas Lux and Marilyn Nelson under Roebling’s famous arches. Upon arrival in Brooklyn, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Galway Kinnell recites Whitman’s immortal “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” as the sun sets over the waterfront. This year’s celebration will culminate in a festive dinner at Bubby’s Brooklyn, where actor Bill Murray will treat Poets House supporters to a selection of his favorite verses. June 9 at 6:30 p.m. $250 and up. Reservations required. 212-431-7920 ext. 2211 or email krista@poetshouse.org.
Reading
MAYAKOVSKY
This unusual event features actor Ethan Hawke reading work from “Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and about Mayakovsky.” The leading poet of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and of the early Soviet period, Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the founders of Russian Futurism movement. He originally planned to become an artist, and his early poems have strong painterly visions and sequences that recall film techniques. Imprisoned on three occasions for subversive political activities, he began to write poetry during a period of solitary confinement in 1909. From “A Cloud in Trousers”: “Of Grandfatherly gentleness I’m devoid/ there’s not a single grey hair in my soul!/ Thundering the world with the might of my voice/ I go by—handsome, twenty-two-year-old.” May 28 at 7 p.m. Free. 192 Books. 192 10th Ave. at 21st St. 212-255-4022, 192books.com.
Courtesy Farrar, Straus & Giroux
