A day before he signed the Paris Agreement on climate change at the United Nations headquarters last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stopped by a Brooklyn gym, where he gave boxing lessons to a group of disadvantaged youth. While Trudeau put the youngsters through their paces, for the past six months it’s the prime minister’s passport that has been getting a workout.

When artists look for a dream workspace, Manhattan exerts a powerful pull. But for choreographer and cultural ambassador Ronald K. Brown, who celebrates the 30th anniversary of his troupe Evidence, A Dance Company with a run at the Joyce Theater this week, creative opportunities led him back to his Brooklyn roots.

In 1999, a white South African, Dennis Dupree, opened a restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn along with his brother and sister-in-law. They named it Madiba, the clan name used by many South Africans to refer affectionately to Nelson Mandela. When people in Brooklyn heard the news of Mandela's death, many quickly gathered at Madiba.

Before I moved to Paris three years ago, although I’d already been to the city and was lucky enough to call French my second language, I still held more than a few romantic preconceived notions. Every metropolis has a set of stereotypes linked to it, and Paris exists in many people's minds as a charming, luxurious, timeless hub of style and sophistication—in fact, so many people expect the City of Light to be what they want it to be that the reality has rendered some tourists physically sick with disappointment.