West Side Fest 2024

Watch a rehearsal of a play written by a Rattlestick fellow in the inaugural Terrence McNally New Works Incubator.

Learn about NYC’s coastal waters! This free hands-on science festival includes awesome experiments, kid-approved entertainment, wildlife interaction and more, all at Hudson River Park’s Pier 84. Scientists of all ages can engage with marine waterways in fun and educational ways—enter through the impressive Shark Arch, get up close and personal with eels, toadfish, oysters and more and don’t miss an amped up experiment at the Science Stage.

For 50 years, Penny Jones & Co. Puppets have charmed audiences with their Old Time interactive puppet theater in an intimate space for young children. Join them for “Peppi and the Pop-Up Dragon”, a puppet show inside a giant pop-up book, which premiered at the Henson International Puppet Festival. The sun rises and sets over a happy fishing village with bells that ring, babies that are rocked, and boats that go out to sea. But the town is threatened by the pop-up dragon from the Blue Mountain. Peppi and Peppina save the day with creativity, co-operation and a happy lesson for all. The audience creates the sounds and songs, and after the show, everyone makes a simple puppet dragon to take home.

Enjoy free admission from 10:30am to 6pm. Advance registration recommended for timed tickets. Visit the Family Open Studio Art Marking Program from 11am to 3pm, free with admission. Families and visitors of all ages are invited to get creative at the Whitney! Make your own art inspired by works on view in the collection and current exhibitions. At 11am and 5pm, take a stroll during ‘Whitney Neighborhood Arts Walk,’ a free neighborhood walking tour that explores the cultural highlights of the Whitney Museum’s neighborhood led by a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow.

Stop by for a special Creative Break: Visual Arts & Music! Teaching artists Georgie Flores and Martin Urbach will provide art supplies and music makers, so just bring your creativity. For inspiration, look closely at the lush landscape around you as it begins to change from summer to fall.

Join us from 11am–5pm to celebrate the opening of “The Sea, the Sky, a Window: A Project by Sarah Crowner.” Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about this exhibition from our Teen Educators and Foundation staff.

Join Print Center staff for a conversational walkthrough of A Model Workshop, which tells the story of Margaret Lowengrund’s work, her founding of the hybrid print workshop-gallery space The Contemporaries, and its legacy as the Pratt Graphic Art Center. Explore the networks of artists and printers who shaped developments in mid-century printmaking in New York and the United States.

Get creative and connect with your emotions and well-being at the Rubin, a museum dedicated to Himalayan art and cultures. Join an art workshop guided by graduate students from NYU’s Steinhardt Graduate School of Art Therapy. Art prompts are inspired by the current exhibition Death Is Not the End and encourage self-reflection and discovery in a supportive environment. The program takes place in the Spiral Lobby. All ages are welcome and no art experience is required. 30 minute gallery tours will also be offered at 2pm and 3pm. Tours meet in the Spiral Lobby.

Poster House, the first and only museum in the United States dedicated to the art and history of the poster, and Hudson River Park, a four-mile long recreational space and river sanctuary, join in collaboration for a day of performances, live screen printing and letterpress printing, children’s activities, and much more at Hudson River Park’s Pier 63! At the museum, enjoy free admission and timed tours of newly-opened exhibitions; and on the High Line, check out an interactive wheatpasting wall where you can paste up a poster like the professionals!

Be inspired by open studio tours of the work/live spaces and an Art+Craft+Vintage market in the courtyard. Some of Westbeth’s most notable artists will be featured, as well as live music throughout the day!

White Columns is pleased to present a book sale from the library of Barbara Ess, in collaboration with Boo-Hooray and the Estate of Barbara Ess. All proceeds will go to the Estate of Barbara Ess.

Leading contemporary ballet company, BalletX, has been hailed as a “place of choreographic innovation” and an “epicenter of creation.” During our Family Matinee at 2pm, families and kids of all ages are invited to witness BalletX’s technical precision with vibrant choreography by Jamar Roberts, Jennifer Archibald, and more. Tickets start at $10.

In conjunction with Pamela Rosenkranz’s Plinth commission, “Old Tree”, High Line Art will present a poetry reading event at the Spur. The reading will feature New York-based poets, whose poetic practices touch on similar themes of “Old Tree”—the human body, circulatory systems, trees, connection between humans and nature, among others. The reading will occur in two 45-minute sessions with a 15-minute intermission in between. The first reading session will begin at 3pm, and will be organized around the theme of the body and its interconnectedness with other species and the natural world. The second reading session will begin at 4:30pm, and will feature poets working with themes of trees and their spiritual history.

The Dragon Sisters, an award-winning multidisciplinary performance duo based in Brooklyn, are presented in partnership with Poster House. Ladies of Hip-Hop, an organization dedicated to uplifting the voices of women in street and club dance forms, is presented in partnership with Chelsea Factory.

Celebrate the culmination of West Side Fest with a block party hosted by The Shed! Featuring dance sets by The Dragon Sisters and Ladies of Hip-Hop, as well as ongoing DJ sets by Riobamba, BEARCAT, and Ashley Venom.

Join us for a free public outdoor presentation of “City Park”, a controversial early concert work by maverick American composer, cellist, producer, and singer Arthur Russell (1951–1992), which integrates chamber music, electronics, concrete poetry, turntablism, and modern rock.

The new, site-specific version at the Memorial, directed by Nick Hallett, features percussionist David Van Tieghem, who participated in the work’s premiere, and Peter Zummo, another primary Russell collaborator, in collaboration with a later generation of musicians invested in Russell’s legacy, including Nat Baldwin, Lea Bertucci, Shawn O’Sullivan, and Alex Waterman (ensemble subject to change).

The concert is presented in partnership with the Music Department at Wesleyan University and the Arthur Russell Estate.