New York is packed with professionally trained performers of all kinds. And then there are the rest of us, who sit in the audience, thinking we could never do what they're doing on stage.  Janaya Williams was one of those people.  And then things changed.

Boy meets girl at train station. Boy and girl fall in love on the spot. Boy and girl are already in other relationships. Tortured affair ensues.

Five co-workers plus one Backstreet Boys song equals possibly the funniest video of the year.

Here is a preview of what's in store at this Saturday's Navidad Para del Pueblo performance at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts.

Only 26 days left in 2009. Tell us what made your year. Name the best food, song, movie, book, show or cultural experience you had. We're reading your choices on WNYC this month.

 This weekend, cartoonists will get to escape their drawing boards for a day of artist signings, discussions and live music.

Welcome to Friday.

Here's a 17-second clip of a kitten making "peek-a-boo" faces.

Two thousand artists. Thirty-three countries. More than two hundred fifty galleries. All spread out on a convention center floor the size of 10 football fields. If you're looking for subtlety, Art Basel Miami Beach is not the place to find it.

Have nothing going on tonight? Need some advice on what to do? Here are a bunch of tips for cultural events taking place this weekend in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan.

Only 28 days left in 2009. Tell us what made your year. Name the best food, song, movie, book, show or cultural experience you had. We're reading your choices on WNYC this month.

Video artist Omer Fast tells stories of love, war, and displacement that blend fact and fantasy. 

Interaction with architecture isn't limited to New York. Using three-D projection, Urbanscreen makes a German building shift, expand...and dream.

Take a break from arguing whether Colin Firth or Matthew McFayden was the hotter Mr. Darcy. You can get a huge dose of Jane Austen love at the Morgan Library.

Tell us, and each other, what made your year. Name the best music, film, food, book or cultural experience you had in 2009.  We're reading your choices on WNYC all month long. 

Your kid's art isn't just good for decorating refrigerators and office cubicles. It's also a glimpse into imagination and the creative process.

The BK gets no love in Jonathan Lethem's latest novel. Not even a paragraph. With the exception of two quick mentions, the born-and-bred Brooklyn author sets his sights on Manhattan in Chronic City.

We're on the road to map New York’s cultural scene. And you're riding shotgun. Our first request: name us.  Shlomit suggested, "YouMap" and Frank thought simply, "Experience."  What's your thought?

Watching Janelle Monae perform live is like watching a frenzied minister at a Baptist revival. The funk singer works herself into a trance-like state. High-pitched screaming, flailing and jerking are all part of her repertoire.

Ladies in pasties take the stage at the Met for its new production of  Les Contes d'Hoffmann. In this thoroughly modern version of the 19th Century tale, Jacques Offenbach's psychodrama about three failed love affairs is part-Kafka, part-Fellini. Watch the video.