Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) has announced the second annual Summer for the City, the ultimate New York festival.
Over three months, Lincoln Center turns its campus into a summer festival. It features 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.
“We are blessed to be in the heart of the most diverse city in the world, and to have sixteen acres of outdoor space to celebrate the magic of this bustling global city,” Shanta Thake, Ehrenkranz Chief Artistic Officer of LCPA said. “This summer builds on a city reimagining itself—finding hope in community, and planting seeds for the future. Over three months, we welcome all New Yorkers to come dance, love, and celebrate together with long-standing traditions of social dance and classical music, and new traditions like our wedding for hundreds of couples, and a ‘second line’ processional to honor lives lost.”
Summer of the City Events
Summer for the City honors New York’s multifaceted communities with dynamic new works and reimagined classics. This includes 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, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra concerts. Furthermore, it will all culminate 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. The event 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 these people had never before reserved a ticket to a Lincoln Center presentation.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
In recent years, Lincoln Center has expanded its role as an artistic and civic cornerstone. It hosted dozens of blood drives, food distributions, graduations, and serving as a polling place, core to its broader commitment to the city and a statement of confidence in its enduring vitality.
“Nothing captures the spirit of New York better than our arts, and this summer, thanks to Lincoln Center, thousands of New Yorkers will have access to hundreds of free cultural events,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Summer for the City will include performances by critically acclaimed music artists and curators and be a celebration of our city’s creativity, diversity, and, most importantly, our resilience. New York City isn’t coming back—New York City is back. And we can’t wait to see everyone enjoying the arts the city has to offer.”
A team of curators programmed the 2023 edition of Summer for the City. Additionally, it centers artists and art forms historically underrepresented on campus and welcome wider audiences and communities. Events throughout the summer are inclusively designed. They integrate access needs with a range of accommodations for all performances. This includes ASL interpretation, audio description, live captioning, haptic suits, and more.. The Lincoln Center’s social channel will livestream select performances.
The calendar for the events can be found here.
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