Summer Culture Preview

Ballet Stars, Dance Parties

In summertime, the metropolis develops a caller personality: open, relaxed, even, astatine times, outdoorsy. Each year, the plaza astatine Lincoln Center goes done a vernal transformation, its ceremonial granite parterre converted to a engaged creation level with twinkling lights, portion of the center’s Summer for the City programming. Free nightly creation parties hap determination from June 10 to Aug. 8 (often with headphones, truthful arsenic not to disturb performances astatine the adjacent theatres). This summer, the Center introduces a caller Contemporary Dance Festival (Alice Tully Hall; June 18-July 5), curated by the savvy, stylish Kyle Abraham. Its offerings see a caller enactment by the Bengali British choreographer Akram Khan, inspired by past myth, and a meditation connected the African influences connected Flamenco, by the Ghanaian Jamaican British choreographer Yinka Esi Graves.

Just beyond the creation floor, American Ballet Theatre takes up residence astatine the Metropolitan Opera House with a quartet of big, evening-length, communicative works (June 17-July 18), to the delight of lovers of old-school ballets, the benignant that see colorful sets and Romantic plotlines: “Don Quixote,” “Onegin,” “Swan Lake,” and the endlessly charming “Sylvia.” (Watch, successful particular, for casts that see Chloe Misseldine, Catherine Hurlin, and Daniel Camargo.) On July 6, the erstwhile Bolshoi phenom Natalia Osipova, who made her sanction successful the aboriginal two-thousands with her stratospheric ballon (jumping capacity), returns for her archetypal quality with the institution since 2018, successful “Don Q.”

Osipova is not the lone prima paying New York a call: the Apollo-esque Hugo Marchand, étoile of the Paris Opéra Ballet, has organized an evening of dances astatine New York City Center (July 23-26). The selections volition see Maurice Béjart’s lusty “Boléro,” from 1961, successful which a soloist (Marchand) undulates seductively connected a array to Ravel, similar a snake charmer weaving a spell. Better yet, he’s bringing a fewer of his Opéra-étoile friends, including Léonore Baulac and Germain Louvet, who volition creation George Balanchine’s “Sonatine,” a pas de deux arsenic breezy arsenic a stroll connected the Champs-Élysées.

Mark Morris, for his company’s two-week residence astatine the Joyce Theatre (July 14-25), has chosen a trio of programs acceptable to Americana—a idiosyncratic specialty. The archetypal is mostly made up of fashionable tunes (also with a caller piece, “Pizzica,” acceptable to the Italian-ish euphony that Balanchine utilized for his high-spirited “Tarantella”). The 2nd focusses connected country-and-Western songs. But it is the 3rd that contains 1 of Morris’s astir striking dances, the weird, ritualistic “Grand Duo,” to stirring euphony by the Portland-born Lou Harrison.—Marina Harss

Contemporary Music

Guitar Gods, Rock and Pop Idols

Listen intimately and summer’s attack tin beryllium heard successful the region arsenic the roar of the crowds astatine the 2026 variation of Flushing’s Governors Ball Music Festival grows near. Headliners Lorde, Kali Uchis, and Jennie, of the K-pop miss radical Blackpink, are joined by specified artists arsenic Wet Leg, Blood Orange, King Princess, 2hollis, Geese, and Slayyyter (June 5-7). The nighttime earlier the Vegas rapper Baby Keem takes his top-billed Friday-night slot astatine the fest, helium builds a pop-up casino astatine Brooklyn Paramount (June 4).

A fistful of the champion guitarists successful the satellite convene successful the city. At Sony Hall, arsenic portion of the Blue Note Jazz Festival, Mdou Moctar unleashes riffy jams inspired by assouf, a fusionist Tuareg guitar euphony (June 7). The 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jack White shows disconnected the accomplishment that earned him his enshrinement, astatine Brooklyn Paramount (July 11-12). And, astatine Lincoln Center, St. Vincent sets down her axe to play with the New York Philharmonic, her euphony arranged for accompaniment by Jules Buckley (July 2).