Events
Join us for our upcoming events! Urban Rivers events are always free and open to everyone.
If you’d like to host an event with us, check out our event guidelines, then get in touch via our “contact” page! We’re happy to host community events year-round.
Featured
Art City: Plein Air Paint-and-Sip on the Wild Mile
Join us on the beautiful WIld Mile for a Sunday morning plein air painting session.
Enjoy a relaxed, creative Sunday morning hosted outdoors by Art City. Meet up at the Wild Mile and paint from nature with guidance from an experienced instructor.
Good to know:
This Paint & Sip workshop is BYOB. Coffee and mimosas are welcome!
Setup and all materials are included.
All skill levels welcome.
In case of bad weather, the event will be rescheduled to the following week.
Wild Mile Projections: Spectral Currents
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Spectral Currents: Stories from the Chicago River
The Chicago River bears the marks of centuries of massive intervention. Its course has been reversed, its edges reinforced, its waters used to carry away the products and byproducts of urban growth and waste. Yet traces of earlier landscapes and histories persist within and alongside it. Spectral Currents addresses the river and its spirits through the many presences, treating haunting as a way of attending to what remains difficult to see: displaced communities, altered ecologies, buried infrastructures, and the enduring consequences of environmental change.
Rather than asking what has been left behind, Spectral Currents asks what continues to surface.
Featuring:
Beate Geissler
Gwenny Geissler
Oakley Harber
Rachel Havrelock
Eliza Marley
Eric Pahre
Oliver Sann
Taylor Thornburg
September 10th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 17th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 24th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
October 15th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
BYOB - BRING YOUR OWN BLANKET
CatJam Chicago Jam Session
Join CatJam Chicago for an acoustic jam session on the Wild Mile! This dynamic group of local musicians welcomes any passerby to join the jam. Come relax on the Wild Mile while enjoying the music, or bring your instrument and play with some of Chicago’s coolest cats! This event is alcohol-free.
No RSVP required! You can learn more about CatJam on Instagram, @catjamchicago.
Art City: Plein Air Paint-and-Sip on the Wild Mile
Join us on the beautiful WIld Mile for a Sunday morning plein air painting session.
Enjoy a relaxed, creative Sunday morning hosted outdoors by Art City. Meet up at the Wild Mile and paint from nature with guidance from an experienced instructor.
Good to know:
This Paint & Sip workshop is BYOB. Coffee and mimosas are welcome!
Setup and all materials are included.
All skill levels welcome.
In case of bad weather, the event will be rescheduled to the following week.
Wild Mile Projections: Spectral Currents
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Spectral Currents: Stories from the Chicago River
The Chicago River bears the marks of centuries of massive intervention. Its course has been reversed, its edges reinforced, its waters used to carry away the products and byproducts of urban growth and waste. Yet traces of earlier landscapes and histories persist within and alongside it. Spectral Currents addresses the river and its spirits through the many presences, treating haunting as a way of attending to what remains difficult to see: displaced communities, altered ecologies, buried infrastructures, and the enduring consequences of environmental change.
Rather than asking what has been left behind, Spectral Currents asks what continues to surface.
Featuring:
Beate Geissler
Gwenny Geissler
Oakley Harber
Rachel Havrelock
Eliza Marley
Eric Pahre
Oliver Sann
Taylor Thornburg
September 10th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 17th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 24th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
BYOB - BRING YOUR OWN BLANKET
CatJam Chicago Jam Session
Join CatJam Chicago for an acoustic jam session on the Wild Mile! This dynamic group of local musicians welcomes any passerby to join the jam. Come relax on the Wild Mile while enjoying the music, or bring your instrument and play with some of Chicago’s coolest cats! This event is alcohol-free.
No RSVP required! You can learn more about CatJam on Instagram, @catjamchicago.
Snails on a Bike: Meet Me at Dawn
About the show: a day, a moth, a wish, a motor. The sun is setting and Robyn and Helen don't know where they are or what comes next. A flashlight beam angled at enduring love and disfiguring grief, Meet Me at Dawn is about one precious moment and what to do with it.
About Snails: Snails on a Bike is a Chicago-based theatre collective specializing in performing plays in site-specific, found spaces. We are most excited about work that explores the intricacy of human relationships; all the messiness and beauty of what it means to love in our current social context. We are dedicated to fostering a collaborative and consent-forward environment, where each artist is free to contribute and advocate for themselves and their ideas. We previously collaborated with Urban Rivers on Eurydice in 2024, and we are so delighted to be back at The Wild Mile.
Instagram: @snailsonabike
Snails on a Bike: Meet Me at Dawn
About the show: a day, a moth, a wish, a motor. The sun is setting and Robyn and Helen don't know where they are or what comes next. A flashlight beam angled at enduring love and disfiguring grief, Meet Me at Dawn is about one precious moment and what to do with it.
About Snails: Snails on a Bike is a Chicago-based theatre collective specializing in performing plays in site-specific, found spaces. We are most excited about work that explores the intricacy of human relationships; all the messiness and beauty of what it means to love in our current social context. We are dedicated to fostering a collaborative and consent-forward environment, where each artist is free to contribute and advocate for themselves and their ideas. We previously collaborated with Urban Rivers on Eurydice in 2024, and we are so delighted to be back at The Wild Mile.
Instagram: @snailsonabike
Sustainable Fashion Week Chicago: Clothing Swap on the Wild Mile!
Whether you’re looking for an excuse to clean out your closet or sustainably add a new piece, this event is for you! Join Sustainable Fashion Week Chicago (SFWC), Funk-it, and Urban Rivers on the Wild Mile for a scenic clothing swap.
This is a size-inclusive event, meaning all size clothing are accepted as long as the garments are clean and in good condition. All gender clothing is accepted. $10 entry, unlimited swaps! Remaining clothes will be donated to a local free store for communities in need.
To stay in the loop about other Sustainable Fashion Week events, find SFWC on Instagram and sign up for their newsletter.
Chicago Improvised Orchestra
The symphony where no one knows what to expect, not even the orchestra.
Instagram: @ChicagoImprovisedOrchestra
No registration required!
Snails on a Bike: Meet Me at Dawn
About the show: a day, a moth, a wish, a motor. The sun is setting and Robyn and Helen don't know where they are or what comes next. A flashlight beam angled at enduring love and disfiguring grief, Meet Me at Dawn is about one precious moment and what to do with it.
About Snails: Snails on a Bike is a Chicago-based theatre collective specializing in performing plays in site-specific, found spaces. We are most excited about work that explores the intricacy of human relationships; all the messiness and beauty of what it means to love in our current social context. We are dedicated to fostering a collaborative and consent-forward environment, where each artist is free to contribute and advocate for themselves and their ideas. We previously collaborated with Urban Rivers on Eurydice in 2024, and we are so delighted to be back at The Wild Mile.
Instagram: @snailsonabike
Wild Mile Projections: Spectral Currents
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Spectral Currents: Stories from the Chicago River
The Chicago River bears the marks of centuries of massive intervention. Its course has been reversed, its edges reinforced, its waters used to carry away the products and byproducts of urban growth and waste. Yet traces of earlier landscapes and histories persist within and alongside it. Spectral Currents addresses the river and its spirits through the many presences, treating haunting as a way of attending to what remains difficult to see: displaced communities, altered ecologies, buried infrastructures, and the enduring consequences of environmental change.
Rather than asking what has been left behind, Spectral Currents asks what continues to surface.
Featuring:
Beate Geissler
Gwenny Geissler
Oakley Harber
Rachel Havrelock
Eliza Marley
Eric Pahre
Oliver Sann
Taylor Thornburg
September 10th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 17th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 24th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
BYOB - BRING YOUR OWN BLANKET
CatJam Chicago Jam Session
Join CatJam Chicago for an acoustic jam session on the Wild Mile! This dynamic group of local musicians welcomes any passerby to join the jam. Come relax on the Wild Mile while enjoying the music, or bring your instrument and play with some of Chicago’s coolest cats! This event is alcohol-free.
No RSVP required! You can learn more about CatJam on Instagram, @catjamchicago.
Snails on a Bike: Meet Me at Dawn
About the show: a day, a moth, a wish, a motor. The sun is setting and Robyn and Helen don't know where they are or what comes next. A flashlight beam angled at enduring love and disfiguring grief, Meet Me at Dawn is about one precious moment and what to do with it.
About Snails: Snails on a Bike is a Chicago-based theatre collective specializing in performing plays in site-specific, found spaces. We are most excited about work that explores the intricacy of human relationships; all the messiness and beauty of what it means to love in our current social context. We are dedicated to fostering a collaborative and consent-forward environment, where each artist is free to contribute and advocate for themselves and their ideas. We previously collaborated with Urban Rivers on Eurydice in 2024, and we are so delighted to be back at The Wild Mile.
Instagram: @snailsonabike
Insectropolis: Soundscapes in the Urban Gardens
Join us for the live stage premiere of Pablo Santiago Chin’s Green Alter Egos: an insect opera—a sensuous and surreal journey into a hidden world. This event is a double-bill show, that premieres Tania Rubio chamber music opera that immerses the audience in a fully realized sonic and visual micro-universe.
Snails on a Bike: Meet Me at Dawn
About the show: a day, a moth, a wish, a motor. The sun is setting and Robyn and Helen don't know where they are or what comes next. A flashlight beam angled at enduring love and disfiguring grief, Meet Me at Dawn is about one precious moment and what to do with it.
About Snails: Snails on a Bike is a Chicago-based theatre collective specializing in performing plays in site-specific, found spaces. We are most excited about work that explores the intricacy of human relationships; all the messiness and beauty of what it means to love in our current social context. We are dedicated to fostering a collaborative and consent-forward environment, where each artist is free to contribute and advocate for themselves and their ideas. We previously collaborated with Urban Rivers on Eurydice in 2024, and we are so delighted to be back at The Wild Mile.
Instagram: @snailsonabike
Snails on a Bike: Meet Me at Dawn
About the show: a day, a moth, a wish, a motor. The sun is setting and Robyn and Helen don't know where they are or what comes next. A flashlight beam angled at enduring love and disfiguring grief, Meet Me at Dawn is about one precious moment and what to do with it.
About Snails: Snails on a Bike is a Chicago-based theatre collective specializing in performing plays in site-specific, found spaces. We are most excited about work that explores the intricacy of human relationships; all the messiness and beauty of what it means to love in our current social context. We are dedicated to fostering a collaborative and consent-forward environment, where each artist is free to contribute and advocate for themselves and their ideas. We previously collaborated with Urban Rivers on Eurydice in 2024, and we are so delighted to be back at The Wild Mile.
Instagram: @snailsonabike
Wild Mile Projections: Spectral Currents
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Spectral Currents: Stories from the Chicago River
The Chicago River bears the marks of centuries of massive intervention. Its course has been reversed, its edges reinforced, its waters used to carry away the products and byproducts of urban growth and waste. Yet traces of earlier landscapes and histories persist within and alongside it. Spectral Currents addresses the river and its spirits through the many presences, treating haunting as a way of attending to what remains difficult to see: displaced communities, altered ecologies, buried infrastructures, and the enduring consequences of environmental change.
Rather than asking what has been left behind, Spectral Currents asks what continues to surface.
Featuring:
Beate Geissler
Gwenny Geissler
Oakley Harber
Rachel Havrelock
Eliza Marley
Eric Pahre
Oliver Sann
Taylor Thornburg
September 10th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 17th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
September 24th - Spectral Currents, 8pm
BYOB - BRING YOUR OWN BLANKET
CatJam Chicago Jam Session
Join CatJam Chicago for an acoustic jam session on the Wild Mile! This dynamic group of local musicians welcomes any passerby to join the jam. Come relax on the Wild Mile while enjoying the music, or bring your instrument and play with some of Chicago’s coolest cats! This event is alcohol-free.
No RSVP required! You can learn more about CatJam on Instagram, @catjamchicago.
Night Out in the Parks: Reclaimed Timber (Wild Mile)
Reclaimed Timber, an original production from Chicago ensemble Beyond This Point in partnership with Urban Rivers, will take you on an immersive journey of sound and light as you explore natural areas near the Chicago River. Six percussionists play on six pieces of wood for an entire hour, allowing hypnotic rhythms and undulating waves of sound to crest and fall into each other, blending with the sounds of nature and the City. Accompanying the sounds is a reactive lighting installation made from over 5,000 LEDs and over 200 paper lanterns. https://www.beyondthispoint.org/
Wild Mile Yoga!
Join us for yoga on Chicago’s beautiful floating docks along the North Branch of the Chicago River, surrounded by native gardens and urban wildlife. This class is open to all levels and offers a grounding start to your week in a truly unique outdoor space. Classes end with a short crystal bowl sound bath.
The Wild Mile is a public eco-park created by Urban Rivers, whose mission is to restore wild habitat along the river. 20% of all proceeds go directly to support their ongoing efforts.
We’ll practice on the beautiful floating docks of The Wild Mile, an urban nature sanctuary in the heart of Chicago. Surrounded by native plants, pollinators, and the calming flow of the river, this class is an energizing and grounding way to start your week.
When: Sundays, 5-6pm
Where: The Wild Mile
Bring: A yoga mat, water, and any props you love
Pricing:
$22 to pre-register online
$25 at the door (cash or Venmo)
🌿 All levels welcome.
💚 20% of proceeds support Urban Rivers, the nonprofit stewarding this unique ecological space.
Wild Mile Projections: Special Edition!
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Join us on the Wild Mile for a a recap of four projection pieces from Wild Mile Projections! The event will feature a collection of past projections displayed at the Wild Mile, including Beneath Breathing, Seasons of Care, Barada, Skunk Run, and Spectral Currents.
Night Out in the Parks: Reclaimed Timber (Bubbly Creek)
Reclaimed Timber, an original production from Chicago ensemble Beyond This Point in partnership with Urban Rivers, will take you on an immersive journey of sound and light as you explore natural areas near the Chicago River. Six percussionists play on six pieces of wood for an entire hour, allowing hypnotic rhythms and undulating waves of sound to crest and fall into each other, blending with the sounds of nature and the City. Accompanying the sounds is a reactive lighting installation made from over 5,000 LEDs and over 200 paper lanterns. https://www.beyondthispoint.org/
Wild Mile Projections: Skunk Run - Gųųšgoonąk
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Skunk Run - Gųųšgoonąk
Artists Casey Brown (Ho-Chunk) and Selena Kearney (Chehalis), recognizing the ancestral presence of water in what is now known as Chicago, build this work around the intentional observation of water. Spending time gathering light on water, reflections, and movement within these waterways, they aim to deepen attention and create quiet meditations on this life force. Both artists bring deep cultural relationships to canoeing, approaching the river not as documented subject but as a place experienced through slow, human-powered travel. The canoe creates the conditions for careful looking, listening, and collaboration.
Thursdays, 9:00–9:30 PM
August 6, August 13, August 20, August 27, September 3rd
Artists: Selena Kearney & Casey Brown
Night Out in the Parks: Reclaimed Timber (River Park)
Reclaimed Timber, an original production from Chicago ensemble Beyond This Point in partnership with Urban Rivers, will take you on an immersive journey of sound and light as you explore natural areas near the Chicago River. Six percussionists play on six pieces of wood for an entire hour, allowing hypnotic rhythms and undulating waves of sound to crest and fall into each other, blending with the sounds of nature and the City. Accompanying the sounds is a reactive lighting installation made from over 5,000 LEDs and over 200 paper lanterns. https://www.beyondthispoint.org/
CatJam Chicago Jam Session
Join CatJam Chicago for an acoustic jam session on the Wild Mile! This dynamic group of local musicians welcomes any passerby to join the jam. Come relax on the Wild Mile while enjoying the music, or bring your instrument and play with some of Chicago’s coolest cats! This event is alcohol-free.
No RSVP required! You can learn more about CatJam on Instagram, @catjamchicago.
Wild Mile Yoga!
Join us for yoga on Chicago’s beautiful floating docks along the North Branch of the Chicago River, surrounded by native gardens and urban wildlife. This class is open to all levels and offers a grounding start to your week in a truly unique outdoor space. Classes end with a short crystal bowl sound bath.
The Wild Mile is a public eco-park created by Urban Rivers, whose mission is to restore wild habitat along the river. 20% of all proceeds go directly to support their ongoing efforts.
We’ll practice on the beautiful floating docks of The Wild Mile, an urban nature sanctuary in the heart of Chicago. Surrounded by native plants, pollinators, and the calming flow of the river, this class is an energizing and grounding way to start your week.
When: Sundays, 5-6pm
Where: The Wild Mile
Bring: A yoga mat, water, and any props you love
Pricing:
$22 to pre-register online
$25 at the door (cash or Venmo)
🌿 All levels welcome.
💚 20% of proceeds support Urban Rivers, the nonprofit stewarding this unique ecological space.
Wild Mile Projections: Skunk Run - Gųųšgoonąk
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Skunk Run - Gųųšgoonąk
Artists Casey Brown (Ho-Chunk) and Selena Kearney (Chehalis), recognizing the ancestral presence of water in what is now known as Chicago, build this work around the intentional observation of water. Spending time gathering light on water, reflections, and movement within these waterways, they aim to deepen attention and create quiet meditations on this life force. Both artists bring deep cultural relationships to canoeing, approaching the river not as documented subject but as a place experienced through slow, human-powered travel. The canoe creates the conditions for careful looking, listening, and collaboration.
Thursdays, 9:00–9:30 PM
August 6, August 13, August 20, August 27, September 3rd
Artists: Selena Kearney & Casey Brown
CatJam Chicago Jam Session
Join CatJam Chicago for an acoustic jam session on the Wild Mile! This dynamic group of local musicians welcomes any passerby to join the jam. Come relax on the Wild Mile while enjoying the music, or bring your instrument and play with some of Chicago’s coolest cats! This event is alcohol-free.
No RSVP required! You can learn more about CatJam on Instagram, @catjamchicago.
Wild Mile Yoga!
Join us for yoga on Chicago’s beautiful floating docks along the North Branch of the Chicago River, surrounded by native gardens and urban wildlife. This class is open to all levels and offers a grounding start to your week in a truly unique outdoor space. Classes end with a short crystal bowl sound bath.
The Wild Mile is a public eco-park created by Urban Rivers, whose mission is to restore wild habitat along the river. 20% of all proceeds go directly to support their ongoing efforts.
We’ll practice on the beautiful floating docks of The Wild Mile, an urban nature sanctuary in the heart of Chicago. Surrounded by native plants, pollinators, and the calming flow of the river, this class is an energizing and grounding way to start your week.
When: Sundays, 5-6pm
Where: The Wild Mile
Bring: A yoga mat, water, and any props you love
Pricing:
$22 to pre-register online
$25 at the door (cash or Venmo)
🌿 All levels welcome.
💚 20% of proceeds support Urban Rivers, the nonprofit stewarding this unique ecological space.
Wild Mile Projections: Skunk Run - Gųųšgoonąk
Wild Mile Projections - a collaboration between Urban Rivers and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Skunk Run - Gųųšgoonąk
Artists Casey Brown (Ho-Chunk) and Selena Kearney (Chehalis), recognizing the ancestral presence of water in what is now known as Chicago, build this work around the intentional observation of water. Spending time gathering light on water, reflections, and movement within these waterways, they aim to deepen attention and create quiet meditations on this life force. Both artists bring deep cultural relationships to canoeing, approaching the river not as documented subject but as a place experienced through slow, human-powered travel. The canoe creates the conditions for careful looking, listening, and collaboration.
Thursdays, 9:00–9:30 PM
August 6, August 13, August 20, August 27, September 3rd
Artists: Selena Kearney & Casey Brown