Dance
The three glittering segments of George Balanchine’s beloved 1967 ballet “Jewels” — “Emeralds,” “Rubies” and “Diamonds” — make up the program that kicks off New York City Ballet’s fall season (Sept. 22-Oct. 18).
And don’t dawdle on getting tickets to the popular Fall for Dance Festival at City Center (Sept. 22-Oct. 3), which this year presents 15 companies and 11 premieres.
Get Down
In the 1970s, the Bronx was a hotbed for the Latin Hustle, breaking and other dance forms with roots in Afro-Caribbean and African American traditions. That pioneering period informs “When the Bronx Moved,” an exhibition on view through Sept. 28 at the Museum of Bronx History, in the Norwood neighborhood.
On Sept. 6, resurrect the spirit of that era at Paradise Garage Reunion, a noon-to-midnight roller-skating party honoring that influential Manhattan nightclub, which was a party-people magnet in the 1970s and ’80s. The celebration is at Xanadu Roller Arts in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Comedy
I first fell for the go-for-broke comedian Chelsea Handler when she was on “Girls Behaving Badly,” the catty early-2000s hidden-camera prank show. On Sept. 25, who knows how this Jersey girl will behave when she plays the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side.
Pop Music
Hey, Gen X: Good luck picking a show on Sept. 25. Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles is at Café Carlyle on the Upper East Side, as part of a five-night engagement from Sept. 21 to 26; Cabaret Voltaire plays the Knockdown Center in Maspeth, Queens; UB40 is at Town Hall in Midtown; and the Prodigy kicks off the CBGB Festival at Under the K Bridge Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where the next day Morrissey and Interpol are among the headliners.
There’s more: The Beastie Boy Mike D is at the Knockdown Center (Sept. 9). TLC, Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue are at Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, N.Y. (Sept. 15). Erykah Badu and De La Soul play Forest Hills Stadium in Queens (Sept. 18).
Other concerts by generation: Baby boomers, Dion is at Staten Island’s St. George Theater (Sept. 19). Millennials, Ed Sheeran performs at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (Sept. 4-5). Gen Z, Adela plays Brooklyn Steel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (Sept. 18-19).
Classical and Jazz
Catch a free afternoon jam session before alfresco jazz season ends. Riverside Park Conservancy’s Jazz in the Park is at Ralph Ellison Plaza in Hamilton Heights on Sept. 6. The Inwood Jazz Festival is at Inwood Hill Park on Sept. 20.
The Museums Special Section
Also on Sept. 20, the formidable genre-hopping singer Cecile McLorin Salvant is going to take you to church, and I mean it: She and the pianist Glenn Zaleski perform a free afternoon concert of jazz, baroque and the American songbook at Trinity Church in the financial district.
The recital hall and dance floor converge at Mezame New York, a festival of experimental music and contemporary sound at performance spaces in Manhattan and Brooklyn (Sept. 25-27). It includes “Visions of Hildegard,” an evening of choral works by the Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen, at St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan’s Flatiron district Sept. 25-26.
On the March
On Sept. 7, New York City’s Caribbean community celebrates its cultures and colors at the West Indian American Day Parade, which travels down Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn starting at 11 a.m. Party beforehand on Sept. 4 when the Brooklyn Museum hosts Soca Fest, a night of music and dancing that goes until 3 a.m.
Light up the night on Sept. 19, when Morningside Lights, a procession of floating handmade lanterns, travels through Morningside Park to the Columbia University campus. From Sept. 12 to 18, the Miller Theater hosts free lantern-building workshops.
Film
Union Docs, a nonfiction film center in Ridgewood, Queens, is hosting Wiseman’s New York, a crash course on films that the pioneering director Frederick Wiseman, who died in February, made in the city. Discussions and screenings take place Sept. 2 to 13 at theaters across the city. Splurge on a full pass for $395.
Short films by the renowned experimental director Peter Hutton are on the program at the indie Rockaway Film Festival, at the Arverne Cinema on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens (Sept. 2-6), while the 64th New York Film Festival at Film at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side (Sept. 25-Oct. 12) features new works from Tony Gilroy, Ava DuVernay and more, as well the latest “Godzilla.”
Dip Your Wick
We know what the child-stars-turned-fashion-designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen look like. But what do they smell like? Find out on Sept. 13 and 27 when Mise en Scènt, a candle studio in Industry City, Brooklyn, hosts “You Got It, Dude!,” a candle-making class inspired by the Y2K-era Olsens (think lip gloss, sleepovers and pizza). Horror fans should check out the slasher-inspired class on Sept. 6 with the author Rachel Harrison.
Books
On Sept. 28 at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, the actor Kyle MacLachlan, who played the dapper agent Dale Cooper on David Lynch’s eerie series “Twin Peaks,” talks about his new memoir, “Fictional Selves,” with Ethan Hawke, his co-star on the series “The Lowdown.”
Theater
In 2017, critics praised the beauty and brains behind Jocelyn Bioh’s “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play,” a comedy about students vying to be crowned Miss Ghana 1986. (The “nasty-teen comedy genre emerges wonderfully refreshed,” wrote Jesse Green in his review.) Manhattan Theater Club is bringing the play back, starting on Sept. 8 at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater.
Kids
Celebrate the New York Transit Museum’s 50th birthday at its annual family-friendly Bus Festival, a free event in Brooklyn Bridge Park at Emily Warren Roebling Plaza on Sept. 19. Children can climb aboard several vintage buses, including a 1931 double-decker nicknamed Betsy.
The next day on Pier 6 lawn at the park, blankets and books are all your family needs at Slow Summer, a free group reading party. There will be music and breakout conversations with fellow readers.
Art
In July, I recommended seeing the luminous silent-era star Lillian Gish in the 1920 melodrama “Way Down East.” A silk velvet Henri Bendel dress that Gish wore in that film is one of several items — gowns, posters, ephemera — on view in “Goddesses in the Machine,” a new exhibition about fashion and style in American silent film. It opens on Sept. 18 at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery on the Upper West Side and continues through Jan. 3.
Leave Town
Before summer comes to a close, take a day trip beyond the city limits. The Hudson Valley Hot-Air Balloon Festival has balloon rides, fireworks and sunrise yoga. It runs Sept. 4 to 6 at Tymor Park in Lagrangeville, N.Y., about a 90-minute drive from New York City.
