Friday Happenings

Movies

-- Nathaniel Dorsky is an American experimental filmmaker on a par with Stan Brackhage. Like Brackhage, Dorsky looks to film as a means of evoking spiritual states or meditations. (He wrote a book called Devotional Cinema.) His particular talent is in montage and street cinematography, both of which should be on display this evening, as he presents recent work. Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, 7 p.m. $10.

Teutonic Pianos

-- Arzum Seda Röder, a visiting pianist at Harvard, performs solo piano pieces by a motley crew of modern German composers, including Berg, Henze, Lachenmann, Stockhausen and Tutschku. A scholar, Röder will also lecture on the pieces. Goethe Institute, 170 Beacon St., 8 p.m. $10 donation.

Hip Hop

-- Long Island rapper R.A. the Rugged Man got his start in the nineties and has the list of his collaborators reads like a Who's Who of East Coast rap. Nonetheless, as he himself has declared, he's "well-known for being unknown." A rapper's rapper, his flow brings to mind Kool G Rap, and his live shows are reputed to be stellar. Performing with Reef the Lost Cauze. Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, 9 p.m. $15.

Still from Nathaniel Dorsky's film Sarabande courtesy HFA.