Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) announced the second annual Summer for the City, the ultimate New York festival June 14 thru August 12. A first ever full campus transformation by Visual Director Clint Ramos as he creates multiple outdoor spaces.
Over three months, Lincoln Center turns its campus into a summer festival featuring hundreds of free events, thousands of artists, and food from across the city, inviting New Yorkers of all kinds to come together and celebrate the city’s vibrant communities through the arts.
In collaboration with partners across Lincoln Center’s campus and the city, Summer for the City honors New York’s multifaceted communities with dynamic new works and reimagined classics—including a week-long celebration of Korean cultural traditions during Korean Arts Week, the New York City premiere of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the return of the BAAND Together Dance Festival, globalFEST, and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra concerts, and culminating in a week-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop with performances by J. PERIOD, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, a trap choir, and more. The summer also shines a light on accessibility and disability artistry, with Big Umbrella Day, the return of Deaf Broadway, and a series of events curated by disability artistry guest curator Kevin Gotkin.
This season builds on the successes of last year’s inaugural Summer for the City, which brought all of Lincoln Center’s summer festivals under one collective banner, welcoming New Yorkers back together after so much time apart. The inaugural Summer for the City season served an audience of over 300,000 on campus—more than three quarters of whom had never before reserved a ticket to a Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts presentation.
This summer also sees the return of the below events and more:
- Social dance on The Dance Floor at Josie Robertson Plaza, kicking off on June 14th with Grammy and Latin Grammy Award winner Lucrecia performing Cuban music with salsa group 8 Y Más, and continuing throughout the summer with powerhouse artists including the Stax Academy with special appearance by soul icon Booker T Jones; José Alberto “El Canario”; returning favorites like Joe McGinty & The Loser’s Lounge and Orquesta Broadway; a night of line dancing hosted by Stud Country, and performances and classes across a variety of dance styles including swing, Hip-Hop, merengue, salsa, line dancing, Lindy hop, and more.
- Silent discos, following social dance nights on The Dance Floor multiple nights per week with a diverse range of dance styles from K-pop, salsa, Hip-Hop, Broadway, and more.
- The Underground at Jaffe Drive, a speakeasy-inspired space now expanded in size, hosting stand-up comedy nights, jazz nights with Jazz at Lincoln Center, and spoken word and poetry slams curated by Lincoln Center Poet-in-Residence Mahogany L. Browne.
