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During rehearsals for New York City Ballet\u2019s winter season, there was something very unusual about one of the choreographers creating a new dance. It wasn\u2019t just that the person in charge was a woman, though that would have been uncommon until a few years ago. Nor was it that the choreographer, Tiler Peck, was one of the company\u2019s star ballerinas, though that is still quite rare. The difference was what Peck wore on her feet as she made and rehearsed the work: pointe shoes.<\/p>\n
Wendy Whelan, City Ballet\u2019s associate artistic director, said that in her nearly 40 years with the company she had never seen anyone choreograph in pointe shoes before. Peck, who has been with the company 19 years, said that she had never seen anyone else do it, either. But that didn\u2019t stop her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s something that every choreographer has to do,\u201d Peck said. But because she is wearing pointe shoes, \u201cI can step in and show them. And if they tell me that something I want them to do can\u2019t happen, I can be like, Actually, it can!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Stepping in and showing were among Peck\u2019s goals in creating her new ballet, \u201cConcerto for Two Pianos,\u201d which has its debut on Feb. 1. While she has made work elsewhere, this is her first piece for her home company. \u201cIt\u2019s my opportunity to pass on to the next generation anything that\u2019s been given to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI know as a dancer all I want is to be challenged and continue getting better,\u201d she added. \u201cSo I wanted to use the technique of these dancers and push them. I wanted to make something that they will want to dance every night.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started with the music: Francis Poulenc\u2019s \u201cConcerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.\u201d It\u2019s a bright, exuberant score of racing virtuosity, Mozartean melodies and patches of mystery. It sounds like music that Peck, an omnicompetent technician known for her time-bending mastery of musical phrasing<\/a>, would enjoy dancing to herself, and her choreography attends to it actively.<\/p>\n To cast the work, she said, all she had to do was listen. In the concerto\u2019s full-throttle piano runs, she saw the whirlwind bravura of Roman Mejia. In its dramatic sections, she envisioned a pairing of Mira Nadon and Chun Wai Chan<\/a>. In the more flippant parts, she imagined India Bradley and Emma Von Enck.<\/p>\n Such imagining was possible because Peck, 35, knows these dancers, all younger colleagues, so well \u2014 their strengths and weaknesses, their untapped potential. About Bradley, for example, she said: \u201cPeople don\u2019t think that she can do the hard technical things. She can, and I want to show that. Having her next to Emma is good for both of them, because Emma is so technically gifted but needs more fullness.\u201d With Nadon, Peck has been working on finesse: in-between steps, rolling through the foot, the details that can turn a gifted ballerina into a great one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Peck\u2019s role as choreographer, she also plays coach. \u201cI get to say all the things I\u2019ve wanted to say when I watch them dance,\u201d Peck said. \u201cNormally, that\u2019s not my job, and I would never want to overstep, but in this space I\u2019m able to, and I get so much satisfaction out of seeing somebody improve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Whelan has noticed the effect. \u201cTiler is really digging into these details that I\u2019ve watched her work on in her own dancing over the years,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s building these little birds on the dancers\u2019 shoulders that they will have for the rest of their careers. They\u2019ll have Tiler\u2019s voice.\u201d<\/p>\n And it isn\u2019t just words. In recent rehearsals, when something wasn\u2019t to Peck\u2019s liking, she often joined the dance herself \u2014 in those pointe shoes \u2014 to solve the problem physically and then teach the solution to the dancers.<\/p>\n \u201cTiler has such amazing coordination and can kind of make anything happen in her body,\u201d Nadon said. \u201cBut then she can communicate how to do it, and since she\u2019s in tune with the way we dance here and we all speak the same vocabulary, we understand immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n In rehearsals, Peck was friendly but firmly in charge, prepared and efficient. Many of her corrections came with laughter and maybe an eye roll. \u201cShe knows when we\u2019re faking something,\u201d Nadon said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe makes the space feel very comfortable,\u201d Mejia said, \u201cbut she will push you to your limit as well \u2014 faster, higher. Anything she says will make you a better dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n As confident as Peck was at the front of the room, she did not always think of herself as a choreographer. As a child at her mother\u2019s dance studio in Bakersfield, Calif., she made dances in many styles, especially jazz. Whelan remembered about 15 years ago when she met Peck\u2019s mother and was praising her daughter\u2019s talent \u2014 \u201cher mom said, \u2018She also choreographs.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But, Peck said, \u201cI didn\u2019t think that meant that I would be able to choreograph something on a classical company.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until 2018 that Damian Woetzel, a former City Ballet star and a mentor to Peck, invited her to make a piece for the Vail Dance Festival, which he directs. (He is also president of the Juilliard School.) \u201cIf he had not given me that push, I don\u2019t know if it ever would have happened,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Since then, Peck has made more works for the Vail festival, as well as for Boston Ballet and Northern Ballet in England. She conceived and directed a dance program at the Music Center in Los Angeles, an experience captured in the documentary \u201cBallet Now.\u201d<\/a> Last year, she presented some of her choreography as part of a program she directed and curated at New York City Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n When the invitation from City Ballet came, Peck felt ready, she said. While the Music Center and City Center programs mixed ballet with tap and hip-hop, and her r\u00e9sum\u00e9 <\/strong>includes appearances on Broadway, she was sure that she wanted her City Ballet debut to be a classical work. The only part of the process that made her nervous was using a large ensemble, or corps, for the first time. (This one has seven couples.) \u201cWhen you add in the second cast, that\u2019s a lot of people in the room,\u201d she said. \u201cBut after 10 minutes I could see that they were enjoying themselves and I calmed down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI feel like the steps I\u2019m giving them are the steps I would give the principal dancers,\u201d she continued. \u201cI think they feel pushed.\u201d She has been following a directive from another mentor, the choreographer William Forsythe, who told her: \u201cDon\u2019t let them just run to their places. Make them dance.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email, Forsythe explained that it was important \u201cto fully choreograph all transitions.\u201d He also offered a vote of confidence, writing that Peck\u2019s extensive exposure to the Balanchine repertoire was \u201cone of the best schools imaginable for a ballet choreographer.\u201d<\/p>\n The choreographic process was difficult for Peck for another reason, though. Two days before her first scheduled rehearsal, her father died. She postponed the start by a day, which she spent listening to the music. Then she got to work with the dancers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI made the steps that I heard in the music, and it was pouring out of me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was cathartic \u2014 to be able to do the thing I love, surrounded by people I love and respect. It was a hard time, but I looked forward to being in the room every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n That rehearsing had to be squeezed in among Peck\u2019s many other rehearsals. This is another way to understand Peck the choreographer wearing pointe shoes. She is in no way done as a dancer. This City Ballet season she is performing in nine works. She pulled herself out of a 10th \u2014 saying no was hard, she said \u2014 because it was on the same program as her premiere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI wanted to be able to sit in the front and enjoy watching the piece and take a bow not in warm-up clothes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Peck is often asked why there aren\u2019t more active ballerinas who choreograph. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m supposed to be in front of the room for an hour and a half and then go rehearse \u2018Swan Lake\u2019?\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not physically possible. It\u2019s easier for men. The pointe shoe adds so much more difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n And then, having rehearsed her \u201cConcerto\u201d and given an interview, she went off to rehearse her dancing in George Balanchine\u2019s \u201cBallo della Regina,\u201d one of the most technically demanding ballerina roles in City Ballet\u2019s repertoire. The pointe shoe may add more difficulty, but that, it seems, is nothing Peck can\u2019t handle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n