Lincoln Center’s “Summer for the City” offers free shows, activities and more

NEW YORK (WABC) — As New York continues to emerge from the scourge of the pandemic, Lincoln Center is set to offer a summer teeming with new cultural life – and most of the activities will be on the house.

Called “Summer for the City,” the three-month initiative, running from May 14 to August 14, will offer a host of programs for visitors to enjoy, curated with the themes of rejoicing, reclaiming and remembering.

If you want to dance, listen to live music, attend a quinceañera, catch a movie outdoors, or find a once-in-a-lifetime venue for a wedding, organizers promise you can do that and a great deal more.

“One of the most basic jobs of the arts is to help heal. This summer we will do exactly that, with moments to rejoice, reclaim, and remember within a city transformed,” Shanta Thake, Ehrenkranz chief artistic officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA), said in a news release.

Henry Timms, president and CEO of LCPA, called the offerings “fresh, new, and thoroughly New York.”

More importantly, they come at a time when New Yorkers need healing.

“We all seek a remedy for the upheaval and pain of the past two years. Art can help provide it: from group singalongs to celebrations of important milestones missed or truncated. We must empower ourselves to let joy back in, together.” Timms said in the release.

Presented as part of the broader Festival of New York, Summer for the City follows last year’s 2021 Restart Stage at Lincoln Center.

This year’s activities include social dancing and lessons, Pride and Juneteenth events, sing-alongs, dance festivals featuring top New York companies, tributes to iconic New York artists and much more.

Among the notable events planned:

Celebrate LOVE: A (Re)Wedding,” in which couples who were not able to get married during the pandemic, or were not able to mark the occasion as they would have wished, will get a “re”-do of their special day, along with live music, dessert and dancing.

QUINCE en la Plaza will let visitors celebrate the Latin American tradition of a quinceañera.

There will also be moments of remembrance, too, including two versions of Mozart’s Requiem, and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s New Orleans-style “second line” processional to honor the lives we have lost.

“We’re thrilled to welcome many artists this summer making their Lincoln Center debuts and are especially pleased the season includes beautiful offerings from so many of our resident organizations,” Thake said in the news release. “We will complement their work, and honor and learn from our past while not being bound by the ways things have always been done.

Get the full rundown of events and activities HERE.