In a city like New York, where great music, theater and film festivals are as much part of the landscape as your corner Starbucks, the Chase Latino Cultural Festival is like no other.

A whirlwind tour through the richness and diversity of the cultures of Latin America and Spain, the festival has taken place in the borough of Queens every summer since 1997.

"This is the largest and most diverse Latino festival in the city," said festival director Claudia Norman. "It offers a wide range of culture, from traditional and folkloric to new and popular voices."

The festival, now in its 12th year, will feature 16 events over 12 days, encompassing film, concerts, theater, dance and the spoken word. It will run from July 23 to Aug. 3 at the Queens Theater in the Park, in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

One of the festival's main attractions is the unique opportunity it offers New Yorkers to enjoy the talent of individual artists and ensembles from Latin America and Spain who - while popular and, in some cases, even legendary beyond U.S. borders - are unknown here. Some of them are:

- Camerino 4, one of Mexico's most innovative modern dance companies. It will present the world premiere of "Acrílico," commissioned by the Queens Theatre in the Park.

- Bachata Roja Legends, the U.S. debut concert of classic Dominican stars of bachata (a very popular Afro-Caribbean dance style) such as singers Ramón Cordero, Augusto Santos and guitar giant Edilio Paredes. Also featured is singer-guitarist Jon Soriano, a rising bachata star.

- Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto. Members of Colombia's native Kogi tribe, this group is one of their country's musical treasures. Their most recent album, "Un fuego de sangre pura," won the 2007 Latin Grammy Award.

- Rubén Rada, a master of Candombe, an Afro-Uruguayan rhythmic style of music, is not only a prolific composer and singer, but also an outstanding showman with charisma to spare.

- Aquiles Báez, a Venezuelan performer, arranger, composer and guitarist who has recorded many successful albums. His personal style fuses sophisticated harmonies with Latin American rhythms, creating a totally unique sound. His innovative, genre-defying pieces combine jazz, classical and folk music.

Also featured in the festival are such New York groups as Pregones Theater. The Bronx-based group will present "Migrants," a bilingual play with music in which Pregones celebrates the Puerto Rican pioneers who established communities in the U.S. and struggled for the preservation of their culture.

"We think it is important to bring artists to the U.S. from abroad and expose people to the classics and innovators through live performance," Norman said. "We want to communicate that the mainstream Latino culture you get from the media is only part of the story."

The Queens Theatre in the Park, officially established in 1989, has a 464-seat main stage theatre and a 99-seat studio theatre. It occupies a building originally designed as the New York State Pavilion in the 1964 World's Fair.

As always, tickets are reasonably priced from $10 to $35 "to encourage audiences to experience the wide variety of performance traditions found in Latino culture," said festival organizers. Admission is free to selected events for children and families.

For a complete schedule, tickets or other information, call the Queens Theatre in the Park at (718) 760-0064 or visit its bilingual page at www.queenstheatre.org.

-by Albor Ruiz