This November, the American Ballet Theatre will perform in Cuba for the first time in half a century. The company, based in New York City, has long had ties to the island: Cuba’s prima ballerina, Alicia Alonso, moved to the United States, and then joined the ballet theatre in 1940.

On the patio of a soulless corporate plaza, amid the mirrored towers of the financial district, the lunchtime entertainment has arrived.  Everyday at noon for 30 days, Canadian dancer and choreographer Paul-André Fortier is performing the same 30-minute dance piece to a crowd of transfixed tourists and harried suits.

Moments before the sky opened up to a sticky summer storm, a dry wooden dragon appeared in Kew Gardens. Traditional lion dancers performed on the concrete as Buddhist monks blessed the dragonhead, which happened to be attached to a one-ton wooden boat.

Bellies up! New York's first large-scale bellydancing conference pops its hips on the Lower East Side this weekend.

Every August, the sprawling International Fringe Festival brings 1200 performances from over 200 countries to 20 venues around the city (or thereabouts.) In the meantime, there are a number of smaller festivals popping up with promising new fare.

WNYC takes you behind the scenes of one of the city's major theatrical institutions. Watch the video for details.

Free concerts in the summer contain all the elements of complete mayhem, and the Summerstage series in Central Park is no exception.

From centaur fetishists to adults who pretend to be babies, sex advice columnist  Dan Savage has heard just about everything about people's private lives.

Arguing over aesthetics can make for good drama. Painters from Vermeer to Pollock have been subjects of biopics. Both Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George (selection of which are featured in Sondheim on Sondheim) and Art by Yasmina Reza reaped Tony Awards, and a number of current plays are trying to repeat their success.

Whether it’s cross-dressing, drag, or transgender characters, the New York stage has welcomed all kinds of gender ambiguity. Of course the theater has blurred lines between the sexes even before Shakespeare cast men as his female leads.

For this chiseled army of Broadway dancers, the real shows begins before ever stepping on stage. Watch the video.

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Director Michael Mayer discuss the Broadway musical, American Idiot, which was based on the band's music. Watch the video.

The new rock musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" takes a School House Rocks-approach to the U.S. president. Watch the video.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author discusses his latest play, "The Human Scale." Watch the video.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the theater company's latest show, "Whatever, Heaven Allows," at P.S. 122. Watch the video.

Friday, Dec. 25
11:30am-4pm // Upper East Side
The Jewish Museum hosts A Family Celebration, a day-long event featuring a Klezmer concert, tours and kid-friendly activities.

Brooklyn choreographer Reggie Wilson and Andréya Ouamba of Senegal have been collaborators for seven years.  Their newest work, The Good Dance — dakar/brooklyn, stretches from the Congo River to the Mississippi Delta.