Hostos Center 2026 Season is at the Hostos Community College performing arts center in Mott Haven, The Bronx. Of all New York’s Latin theaters, Hostos has some of the most adventurous programming. You’ll see artists here that you won’t see anywhere else in New York. Tickets are less than Manhattan, especially for students. Hostos Center is not commercial. It’s educational. It’s Hostos!
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Latin Culture at Hostos Center
JUNE 2026
Juneteenth Celebration
Forces of Nature Dance Theatre
African and Diasporic dance
Main Theater
Jun 18, Thu, 7pm
FREE with rsvp
If you get the chance, watch the drummers and dancers prepare for the performance, because in many African and Indigenous traditions, dance is how we pray. It’s a sacred act.
MAY 2026
Hip Hop Street Dance
KR3TS “Breakin’ the Code” Gala 🇵🇷
Hip hop street dance
Host: D-Stroy, Artist: Gabriel Emphasis, Poets: La Bruja & Messiah
Main Theater
– May 1, Fri, 7:30pm, $31
– May 2, Sat; Pre-Gala 6pm $111, Show 8pm $49
$31+
Tickets kr3ts.com
Founded by Puerto Rican Ailey dancer Violeta Galagarza, KR3TS (Keep Rising To The Top) is a community dance company in East Harlem “El Barrio” that trains dancers for film (“In the Heights”), video games (“Grand Theft Auto IV”), and stage work with stars of Black and Latin music.
American Classical Music
Orchestra of St. Luke’s with Joseph Parrish “Finding an American Voice” 🇺🇸 🇨🇿
How African American composer Harry T. Burleigh influenced Czech composer Antonín Dvořák
Dvořák Sonatina in G Major for violin and piano
Burleigh selected works for voice and piano, and “Southland Sketches” for violin and piano
Five Boroughs Music Festival
May 7, Thu, 7:30pm
FREE with RSVP
Tap Dance
Orlando Hernández & The Knee-Heart Connection
“Too Soon to Discover Planets, Too Late to Discover Islands” 🇵🇷
Physical theater of tap dance and masks to live music
Inspired by Taíno and colonial Puerto Rican history
May 9, Sat, 7:30pm
FREE with RSVP
We have several great Puerto Rican tap dancers in New York, and Hernández is one of them. The Knee-Heart Connection is his experimental tap dance theater project inspired by Puerto Rican history. Sounds like plena of the feet.
Puerto Rican Nueva Trova
Roy Brown & Zoraida Santiago 🇵🇷
“De la Tierra en que nací” (From the land where I was born)
Puerto Rican Jíbaro music
Repertory Theater
May 23, Sat, 7:30pm
From $43
This is part of the BoriCorridor Tour 2026.
“De la Tierra en que nací” is an iconic Puerto Rican Nueva Trova song written by Zoraida and famously recorded by Roy Brown. This protest folk music from 1970s and 1980s Puerto Rico uses the Spanish décima, 10-line poetic form in a Puerto Rican Jíbaro context.
Jíbaros were Puerto Rico’s mountain farmers. Up in the mountains, the trovadores are still at it. They are amazing improvisers and battle each other, just like a rap battle. It makes you wonder who came first?
I checked, the trovadores were doing rhyming duels centuries before rap. Rap was created by Black kids in The Bronx, but a lot of those Black kids were Puerto Rican. Hmm. Those Puerto Rican kids also put their parents’ Palladium Ballroom moves into breakdancing.
Listening to this music, makes me want to go home, so bad.
APRIL 2026
Mexican Ballet Folklorico
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company “Monarcas” 🇲🇽 🇺🇸
“Company E” and “Viñedos”
Ballet folklorico about the sacrifices and contributions of Mexican Americans
Main Theater
– Apr 17, Fri, 10:30am, School Presentation, $Free with rsvp
– Apr 19, Sun, 3pm, $30+, $5 students/children
American Theatre
Hostos Repertory Company “The Niceties” 🇺🇸
Black student challenges white professor’s American history
Black Box Theatre
Apr 22 – May 1, Wed-Fri,
$FREE with email reservation
“The Niceties” is about a really bright Black student whose thesis challenges her white professor’s version of American history and the emotional debate and power struggles that it triggers. The story, written in 2016, plays out like the 2025-2026 culture wars in America.
Produced and directed by Ángel Morales, the play was written by Eleanor Burgess, a white woman who studied history at Yale before getting an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch. She is a major playwright and screenplay writer who deserves credit for being sensitive to “other” American perspectives.
Cuban & Puerto Rican Dance Music
¡Charangazo! Eddy Zervigón & Orquesta Broadway with Karen Joseph, Son del Monte, Foto Rodríguez y su Orquesta La Única tribute to Félix “Pupi” Legarreta 🇨🇺 🇵🇷
Major charanga and salsa concert
Main Theater
Apr 25, Sat, 7:30pm
$25+
Charanga is Cuban dance music fronted by flute and violins for dancing indoors, instead of trumpets and trombones used on the street. It led to the Cha-cha-chá and pachanga dance crazes of the 1950s that popularized Latin music around the world, and evolved into salsa in New York’s Puerto Rican communities. Puerto Ricans have always had great respect for Cuban music.
Eddy Zervigón & Orquesta Broadway is a New York charanga orchestra whose Cuban leader drove the pachanga dance craze in 1960s New York City. They were fixtures at the legendary Palladium Ballroom and played the last live set there. Karen Joseph is one of the best female flutists in charanga and salsa. 🇨🇺
Son del Monte is a New York charanga and salsa dura orchestra. They added the trombone to the traditional Cuban charanga format. 🇵🇷
Foto Rodríguez y su Orquesta La Única is one of the most famous salsa and charanga orchestras to grow outside of New York. They are from Philly. 🇵🇷
Félix “Pupi” Legarreta (1940-2023) was a legendary Cuban violinist, flutist, singer, composer, and arranger. He was a charanga master and Fania All-Star. 🇨🇺
MARCH 2026
Puerto Rican Theatre
Repertorio Español’s “Los Soles Truncos,” René Marqués’ story about the pain of gentrification in Puerto Rico, told by three upper class sisters who feel that the Americans have taken everything from them; is in Spanish at Hostos Center Repertory Theater in Mott Haven, The Bronx; on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 at 7pm for $15 (students & Children $5); and Thursday, March 19 at 2:30pm for $7. 🇵🇷
This is a very real hurt. Americans have bought property all over the island and turned a lot of it into short-term rentals. They don’t interact with Boricuas. Their presence and tourism have raised prices for everyone. So where are Puerto Ricans supposed to live and eat?
Classical Ballet
The Beauty of Ballet is a family-friendly presentation by the School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet’s official school. It shows how ballet dancers train, teaches a few steps, and performs excerpts from ballet’s most beloved classics: “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Swan Lake,” and “The Nutcracker.” It’s at Hostos Center Repertory Theater on Saturday, March 28, 2026 at 2pm. Free with RSVP.
The School of American Ballet does this program to inspire you to study ballet. It is one of the best ballet schools in NYC. Whether you become a professional dancer or not, studying ballet teaches you to practice, work in a group, and always maintain your poise. It’s good life training.
By the way, bet you didn’t know that America’s and New York City Ballet’s first prima ballerina was Maria Tallchief, a Native American Osage Nation. “The Firebird” and the “The Nutcracker” Sugar Plum Fairy were choreographed for her.
African American Theatre
Shirley Chisholm: Unbossed and Unbowed is a one-woman show by Ingrid Griffith, about the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. It’s at Hostos Center Repertory Theater on Tuesday, March 31 at 2pm for $7, and 7pm for $20 ($5 Students/Children).
The Barbadian Guyanese American from Brooklyn ran for President in 1972 under the slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.” She was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus. People like her paved the way for you to be what you want to be. We definitely need more women and people of color in office. Be inspired.
Hostos Center Tickets
450 Grand Concourse
(between 149th & 144th St)
Mott Haven, The Bronx
(718) 518-4455