World-class Creatives Team up Sept. 18 to Celebrate Pittsburgh’s Future

An inaugural weeklong Pittsburgh exhibition including the “StartUP PGH” innovation conference and the first-ever Pittsburgh Homecoming crescendos Sept. 18 with an epic, future-themed event: “Pittsburgh Tomorrow, A City on the Rise,” featuring interactive installations by 20 Pittsburgh creatives including Oscar-winner Brendan Burch, world-renowned experiential artist Johannes DeYoung, Attack Theatre founders and artistic directors Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope, and DJ and producer Hussein Pwono, aka DJ pvkvsv. 

The Sept. 18 event, 7-10 p.m. at Rockwell Park in N. Point Breeze, is open to all, but space is limited and advanced registration is required here.  Also, all registered out-of-town visitors get a free ticket to two weekend events: Pirates/Brewers game, Fallingwater, Carnegie International, Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, Phipps Annual Flower Show, Warhol “Homecoming” exhibit, Kamin Science Center, Children’s Museum, Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, and Pittsburgh Zoo.

“The Sept. 18 collaboration is quintessential Pittsburgh,” said Attack’s de la Reza. “We started with one idea, but this group’s curiosity and creativity soon grew it into three distinct movement installations of gesture and flow, sight and sound. A wall of shadows, appearing and disappearing, envelops dancers, in a similar way that the three rivers envelop the city — an interdisciplinary playground for dancers to explore, reminding us that Pittsburgh is not only a destination, but an invitation to influence what is to come.”

“The artists span animation, video, and interactive media,” said DeYoung, CMU Art Professor and founder of Pennsylvania Expanded Animation Alliance. “All are active in Pittsburgh and internationally, but this will be the first time their works are presented together in Pittsburgh.”

The immersive Sept. 18 event is a production of Pittsburgh Tomorrow, the nonprofit that’s opening the door for a new generation of Pittsburghers and a new chapter in regional growth. Start-UP PGH involves a dozen economic development groups combining their separate conferences and pitch competitions into a single innovation festival creating national attention, venture investment, and local jobs. The Pittsburgh Homecoming adds a major cultural tourism component, shining a national spotlight on Pittsburgh’s cultural and quality of life assets.  

“We’ve been working with these groups for over a year, and it’s exciting to see everyone coming together for a common purpose,” said Pittsburgh Tomorrow founder Douglas Heuck. “Pittsburgh really has the ingredients to be the world’s best place to live, and we’re working with partners in every sector to lift the veil on the incredible things afoot here. Our cultural offerings that weekend rival any city anywhere.”