George Balanchine’s Jewels has its 50th anniversary this year, an event that was commemorated at New York City’s Lincoln Center last month with performances by dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, and the Bolshoi Ballet. The performances were notable not just for the coming together of three of the world’s great dance companies, but because their international representation mirrored the work itself.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced the return of its Lincoln Center Global Exchange, a seminal gathering of world leaders and influencers devoted to exploring the power of art and culture to address the world's most daunting problems.[...] the second annual Global Exchange will focus on two themes: Art and Conflict and Art and the Environment.

Recent years have seen a welcome resurgence in U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, which after honorable service in the Cold War, sailed into the doldrums in the mid-1990s. Today, the State Department is reaching out to foreign publics in partnership with major private sector partners including Jazz at the Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music as well as maintaining its own program of visits, exhibitions and tours. While the new initiatives began under the administration of George W.