JUST RELEASED: FREE music, dance and theater come to Queens branch libraries this summer!

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has partnered with Queens Library in the launch of a new initiative—Lincoln Center Local—to bring free music, dance and theater to local communities beyond Lincoln Center. Developed from the Center’s popular Meet the Artist series, the hour-long programs in this new initiative, which include a Q & A session with the performers, will showcase world-class artists in disciplines ranging from classical music to Broadway, modern to world dance, and theater to spoken word.  

Seven different programs have just been announced for the launch of Lincoln Center Local at seven different Queens Library branches this summer, with performances beginning on July 7 and continuing through Sept. 15, 2012. The shows are below, descriptions and a schedule follows:

•    Latin Beat
•    Resurgence of Spanish Dance
•    Hammerstep+DEORO
•    Fascinating Gershwin
•    Mario the Magician
•    Champian Fulton Quartet
•    It’s All About Armstrong

This April, Lincoln Center’s Meet the Artist joins New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs to present Resonate! African America in Sound and Story, four, FREE, Wednesday after-school programs that will explore the cultural connections of the African Diaspora today. Each hour-long (4−5 p.m.) program features a performance by a noted African or African-American artist, followed by discussion and questions and answers moderated by Meklit Hadero, Artist-in-Residence of New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs.

Today meet African-American vocalist Chanda Rule and African vocalist Somi performing Listening to Roots & Voicing Branches, a multi-media work combining video, story and song that attempts to redress intra-racial tensions in the African Diaspora by exploring the cultural memory of various strands of the Black Atlantic experience.