The River To River Festival is an annual arts festival held in summer in

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The festival presents live art and installations in public spaces and in partnership with institutions in

. It is presented by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The festival includes

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

, visual and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

, and other events that are free and open to the public.

History

The River To River stival was founded in 2002 by

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized b ...

, the Alliance for Downtown New York, Arts Brookfield,

Battery Park City Authority Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the nort ...

, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and

South Street Seaport The South Street Seaport is a historic area in the New York City borough of Manhattan, centered where Fulton Street meets the East River, and adjacent to the Financial District, in Lower Manhattan. The Seaport is a designated historic district, ...

. It was created as an effort to revitalize the Lower Manhattan community after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

by promoting cultural activity and making Lower Manhattan an important experience of New York City's history, art, and commerce.Simon, Lizzie. "Arts Continue to Blossom In Post-9/11 Manhattan." ''The Wall Street Journal.'' August 29, 2011, accessed May 27, 2020: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904332804576536754281414160. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council became the lead organizer and producer of the festival in 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:River To River Festival Arts festivals in the United States Festivals established in 2002 Festivals in New York City 2002 establishments in New York City