Lincoln Center For The Performing Arts Kicks Off Its 25-26 Season This September

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts launches its 2025–26 season this September with a wide array of free and Choose-What-You-Pay events designed to welcome diverse audiences back to its campus. The month-long programming includes dance, music, film, community rituals, and interactive workshops, reflecting Lincoln Center’s ongoing mission to present accessible, inclusive, and artistically ambitious work.

One of the month’s most powerful events will be the Table of Silence Project 9/11, presented in partnership with Buglisi Dance Theatre on September 11. Now in its fifteenth year, this profound public performance ritual serves as a global call to action for peace. Conceived and choreographed by Jacqulyn Buglisi in 2011, the event commemorates the loss of life and honors the bravery of all affected by acts of terror, war, and oppression. More than 150 dancers will gather on Josie Robertson Plaza in a moving presentation that combines the original full-scale version with reimagined elements, unfolding to the resonant call of a conch shell.

Dance lovers can also look forward to the return of A.I.M by Kyle Abraham. Nearing its twentieth anniversary, the company will present an exhilarating triple bill at the Rose Theater from September 25 to 27. Abraham’s 2x4 is set to Shelley Washington’s experimental classical score, performed live by two baritone saxophonists. The Gettin’, created in collaboration with visual artist Glenn Ligon, features live music by GRAMMY Award-winning jazz artist Robert Glasper and reimagines Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite. Finally, If We Were a Love Song offers poetic vignettes set to the music of Nina Simone, performed live by GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter Baby Rose.

The season also sees the continuation of Lincoln Center Moments, a program of free performance-based events specifically designed for individuals with dementia and their caregivers. This month includes Rhythm is My Business: Women Who Shaped Jazz on September 4, a virtual exploration of the contributions of women in jazz, and two intimate performances by Chilean singer-songwriter Claudia Acuña on September 17, followed by a workshop designed for audiences impacted by dementia.

In partnership with The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center’s Create-athon series returns with Draw Your Escape: Creating Comics on September 28. Participants will learn from professional comic book illustrators and writers to design their own digital comic book panel, timed with the Met’s premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a new opera celebrating the power of comics to fight evil.

Free, multigenre programming at the David Rubenstein Atrium rounds out the month. Opening night on September 5 features indie rock singer-songwriter Matt Costa in his multimedia showcase Explorations of Sight and Sound. September 6 brings Song to the Whales, an Indigenous-led collaboration merging music, conservation, and cultural storytelling. On September 9, Lincoln Center collaborates with the New York Philharmonic for Home: Belonging, From New England to Hawaii, the first in a five-part conversation series exploring the American experience. On September 12, Cuban percussionist Miguelito “Pachá” Pozo and La Charanga Pachá launch the season’s ¡VAYA! series with a showcase of Latin music and dance.

Other notable events include the Black Rock Coalition’s fortieth anniversary celebration Rock ’n’ Roll Reparations Live on September 13, East Axis in their Atrium debut on September 18, and Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City on September 19, presented with the American LGBTQ+ Museum. On September 20, audiences can attend a special screening of My Brain: After the Rupture, followed that evening by Prom Queer, a joyful reimagining of prom night as a celebration of love, pride, and becoming. September 22 brings a Community Blood Drive in partnership with the New York Blood Center. The month concludes with acclaimed west coast artist Aneesa Strings on September 26, GRAMMY-nominated family artist Uncle Jumbo on September 27, and pianist Anthony de Mare’s Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano on September 27.