Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, purveyor of fine artistic events 365-days-a-year, brings much of its programming outdoors during the warmer months. As one might expect from its name, the Out of Doors festival is one worthy example of this phenomenon—showcasing performers from around the world in a series of free shows. Midsummer Night Swing lets audiences take dance lessons and then test their new moves to the infectious rhythms of live bands under the summer sky. Music runs the gamut—disco nights, jump blues, samba and tango, not to mention big-band swing from Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks and old-school salsa from Willie Rosario y Su Orquesta.

The Mostly Mozart Festival, meanwhile, initially succeeded in part because it's not outdoors—the event began in August 1966, taking advantage of the recently built Lincoln Center's air conditioning. While climate control is no longer a novelty among concert halls, the huge popularity of the event endures a testament to the artistic achievements of Wolfgang Amadeus himself as well as the organisers' curatorial prowess. Thanks to inexpensive ticket prices, the festival attracts its fair share of classical music novices in addition to long-time aficionados.

Finally, the line-up of this year's Lincoln Center Festival included Kabuki from the company Heisei Nakamura-za (the Nakamura family represents a Kabuki dynasty going back to the 17th century), a troika of classic ballets from the Bolshoi—Swan Lake, Spartacus and Don Quixote—and the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Jean Genet's The Maids, with Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert as sisters engaged in life-and-death power games.