Dancing Between Ballet and Broadway
Watching a preternaturally talented dancer rise in two artistic worlds
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I first saw Tiler Peck when she was still a student. She was one of two School of American Ballet pupils featured in a lecture-demonstration presented by esteemed teacher and former New York City Ballet dancer, Suki Schorer. I was immediately struck by Peck’s verve and aplomb, and I left the event sensing that in the years to come, she was destined for an important career.
My instinct was correct. Peck became an apprentice with NYCB at 15, a full company member soon after turning 16, and a principal dancer before age 21. For me, watching her performances in major George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins ballets has revivified roles that were so familiar, they bordered on stale. Peck’s work inspires me to listen to the music more acutely, and to notice details I previously missed. She dances with bracing clarity, and phrases even the most intricate choreography with a fascinating blend of sophistication and naturalness.
Luckily for Peck, she’s with NYCB at a time when an increasing number and range of choreographers are creating new works for its repertory. Many have gravitated to Peck, and these tailor-made parts have allowed her to mature onstage in front of our eyes. In 2012, Christopher Wheeldon crafted a solo for her in Les Carillons in which she made his intricate and challenging movements seem like her own spontaneous responses to Bizet’s music. The inventive Justin Peck (no relation) has fashioned roles for her that helped her ferocious energy and focus reach new heights. And last year, Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition showcased her newly minted maturity and authoritativeness, as well as a resonant gravitas in her dancing.
Speaking of Vail, watching Peck in programs created by the fest’s artistic director, Damian Woetzel, is where I realized the breath of her range. Woetzel was a stellar NYCB principal, and the end of his tenure overlapped with Peck’s beginning, so they danced a few ballets together quite memorably. Now offstage, he has nurtured her talent at Vail by having her perform choreography by the likes of Antony Tudor, José Limon, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Larry Keigwin, and Matthew Neenan. She even proved that she can knock off fouettés with the best of them in traditional ballet showstoppers like the Don Quixote pas de deux.
This past summer at Vail, Woetzel paired her with legendary vaudevillian and Tony winner Bill Irwin, and they are reprising the duet at City Center’s this October. They are both open-minded masters of excellence, and make for a brilliant and unexpected collaboration.
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Susan Reiter writes regularly about dance for TDF Stages
Top photo: Tiler Peck in George Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3. Photo by Paul Kolnik
Susan Reiter covers dance for TDF Stages.