Chinatown Arts Festival Kicks Off Oct 9!
Chinatown Arts Festival is returning for its ninth year this October! We’re activating our streets and parks by celebrating Chinatown arts outdoors. We’ve got two headlining performances at SDR Park-- a Min (Fuzhounese) opera accompanied by a full orchestra featuring new backdrop artwork commission and bi-lingual super titles, AND a big swing dance featuring a live band playing Chinese jazz standards and bi-lingual dance instruction. On Pell Street, look for a magical afternoon of 变脸 bian lian face-changing performance, street magic, music and dance. In Elizabeth Street Garden, a jazz quintet will live score a silent film directed by Marion Wong in 1916. The beloved Red Silk Dancers return to Seward Park for a demo and dance class. At the Think!Chinatown Studio, Master Ye will teach traditional folk art of dough figurines, Vietnamese Boat People return for another Story Slam, and Jennifer Wen Ma opens the doors to her upcoming art exhibition. We’ll have a very special performance on the sidewalk, doorsteps and through the windows of the T!C Studio featuring traditional Chinese and contemporary dance, Cantonese opera and traditional Chinese instruments.
Led by festival curators Yin Kong, Amy Chin & Ling Tang, the Chinatown Arts Fest features programs produced by Think!Chinatown while highlighting cultural events hosted by other Chinatown organizations. For us, this festival is about presenting Chinatown folk artists and emerging Asian American artists in dialogue with each other, so that we can bring generations together and connect with a wider arts audience. The festival also highlights cultural happenings presented by our neighbors to increase awareness of Chinatown’s cultural assets.
2026 Think!Chinatown’s Arts Festival Events
Check out the many cultural programs Think!Chinatown is presenting this October all around Chinatown!
2026 Chinatown Arts Festival Poster
Every year, we collaborate with a featured artist to design our festival poster. For this year's poster, we commissioned printmaker Jenny Liu to create a stunning multi-colored reduction print. (@studiojliu)!
Her artwork celebrates the vibrant community of artists who power our festival, featuring swing dancers, musicians, and co-curator/dance & papercut artist Ling Tang perched on one of our familiar blue Studio stools.
Neighborhood Calendar
Check out all these many events in and around Chinatown!
Chinatown Arts Festival: Celebrating the cultural richness of Manhattan’s Chinatown since 2018
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Think!Chinatown is a place-based intergenerational non-profit in Manhattan’s Chinatown, working at the intersection of storytelling, arts, neighborhood engagement, and creative placekeeping. We believe the process of listening, reflecting and celebrating develops the community cohesion and trust necessary to work on larger neighborhood issues. By building strength from within our neighborhood, we can shape better policies and programs that define our public spaces, celebrate our cultural heritage and innovate how our collective memories are represented. T!C is the team powering the Chinatown Night Market, Chinatown Block Parties, Chinatown Arts Festival, and more.
Chinatown Arts Festival is held on the unceded land of the Lenape peoples. This festival is supported by public funds from the New York City Dept of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Councilmember Chris Marte and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Thank you to SW!NG Out Community Fund and FABnyc for making our Sara D Roosevelt Park events possible. T!C is also grateful for funding from Abacus Bank, Adobe Community Fund, Ameriprise/Columbia Threadneedle, The First Chinese Baptist Church at 21 Pell St, and many individual friends. Promotion for the Festival is funded in part by a grant from the New York City Tourism Foundation.
Leadership support for Think!Chinatown is generously provided by the Mellon Foundation.
