Tonight we will have two energetic bluegrass bands performing on the Dollar Bank Stage in Point State Park. Pittsburgh’s own Mon River Ramblers will play at 6:30pm followed by Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder at 8pm.

The Artist’s Market will also be open until 8pm all weekend, in Gateway Center Plaza and Point State Park. Make sure to come check out our Emerging Artists that we profiled over the past few weeks, as well as all the other fantastic artists and craftsmen showing their wares!

Also make sure check out all of our fun activities in the Creativity Zone where Creative Reuse is building a plastic castle on the green in Point State Park. I Made It! Market is here all weekend as well, with their handmade arts and crafts. There are a ton of great things to see and do in the Creativity Zone this weekend, so be sure to check it out.

Don’t forget that all the galleries are open downtown until 8pm during the arts festival, so if you need to cool off step into any gallery to see some amazing art. Or you could check out some of the free films playing at Harris Theater today.

There is so much to see and do at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and there are only two days left to see it all! Be sure to check out all of the photos on our Flickr page. You might find some familiar faces in the crowd!

Hope to see you at the Festival!

Though Bassey Ikpi’s words are carefully selected and placed like flowers in an arrangement, they don’t seem to lose that original quality that often comes when a person flies off the cuff. They are what I imagine is a staccato stream of thoughts, ideas and images that flows through her mind at a given moment, and she allows it to drain out during her sometimes rhythmic, sometimes syncopated, always moving, spoken word performances.

As a writer, I try to sound intelligent, witty and poignant. Somehow, as I try to write about the talent Ikpi possesses, I feel like a bumbling, tongue-tied idiot because there is no possible way what I write about her will properly do her or her art form justice.

This Nigerian-born poet/writer is a woman who clearly thinks before she speaks, but definitely allows us to hear the truest form of her thoughts and feelings – a process many of us might find too emotionally difficult to even attempt.

Many have taken note of her ability to deliver a message. Ikpi appeared on HBO’s “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam” five times and was a featured cast member of its national touring company (which was a Tony Award-winning Broadway show, I might add). She has also opened for Grammy nominated artists India Arie, Les Nubians and Luther Vandross.

In 2009, she was a featured performer for Joburg Arts Alive, Johannesburg’s annual arts festival. This year, she hits another ‘Burgh’s arts festival. On Friday, June 11 at 7:30 pm, you can fill your cup in the stream of her perceptual prose at the Trust Arts Education Center.

Ikpi has already kicked-off her five-city summer tour, “Basseyworld Live.” There, you can also see her moderating interactive panel discussions on socially relevant topics, often the primary focus of her work.

We’re just thankful she is bringing a bit of Bassey’s world to Pittsburgh along the way.

Ikpi will be joined by several featured local poets:

CM Burroughs has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants, has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum, and is now a visiting lecturer at Pitt.

Brian Francis recently published his first chapbook, Do It Yourself Divinity. He frequently performs, and was a member of the team representing Pittsburgh in the Rust Belt Poetry Slam in 2007.

Christiane Leach is co-founder of Sun Crumbs, a non-profit which sponsored the first Foundation funded Poetry Slam team in the nation. She performs her poetry as well as teaches performance poetry.

Stacey Waite is a professor whose 2004 chapbook choke won the Frank O’Hara Award for poetry. A second chapbook, Love Poem to Androgyny, won the 2006 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest.

Most of my memories of the Festival are of simply strolling around, taking in the sights and sounds, marveling at the sheer number of things to see and do at any given moment. It has always been enlightening, relaxing and memorable. Never did I consider bringing along my video camera to document the Festival so that I could enjoy it later. I just wanted to enjoy it right then and there. It felt great.

With the explosion of technology that allows a camera and/or video camera to exist inside your mobile phone or be carried in a pocket normally reserved for, say, a stick of gum, it is so easy to document the special moments in our lives, and it is because of that ease that we do more documenting now than ever before.

This new reality has a subsequent phenomenon: people are trying so hard to capture the moment that they end up missing the experience. Local performance innovator Attack Theatre explores and ponders this topic in a new contemporary dance work, R.A.M (Random Accumulated Memories).

Photo Credit: Sarah Higgins

“Attack Theatre loves technology; how it integrates with our lives and with our work as artists,” says Michele de la Reza, co-founder and managing artistic director. “We started noticing these moments in our own lives, for instance with a new child, where we were running to grab our camera phones to capture something special only to find our batteries were run down or our memory cards were full. This got us thinking…”

“The experience is what is important,” she says. “Dance is such an ephemeral, visceral art form - it’s a good way to help drive home the message and remind viewers to live in the experience.”

Ironically, to help in the accumulation of memories, the piece will incorporate a live-feed camera to capture the exact moment and transmit it onto a television screen. Live music will be performed by the Attack Theatre band, led by musical director and superb solo cellist and pianist Dave Eggar. This is a wonderful opportunity for people to enjoy both dance and original music.

The work was commissioned by Three Rivers Arts Festival and Gateway to the Arts who were seeking a new program appropriate for students for their 2010-11 school season. However, it will have its premiere at the Festival in front of a diverse audience of all ages.

Michele reminded me that Attack Theatre has a great history with the Festival. For more than a decade, they have performed pieces and even led activities in the Creativity Zone. “The Festival is, in particular, a place of experimentation. It has allowed us to take risks and to learn in front of an audience, particularly from the reactions. Our product is a living, breathing entity, and the impact of the Festival community can truly change the piece.”

R.A.M (Random Accumulated Memories) will be performed at the Trust Arts Education Center five times during the Festival. That’s five opportunities to enjoy the moments as they unfold. But don’t worry… we won’t tell anyone if you break out your camera phone and post a few shots to help us spread the word.

Click here for the full schedule of events.

Presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Department of Education and Community Engagement