Tiler Peck, America’s reigning star ballerina, brings choreography showcase to Chicago
From her dressing room at Lincoln Center, Tiler Peck regularly offers her half a million Instagram followers a behind-the-scenes peek into the world of a New York City Ballet principal dancer.
Two decades into her run with the company, the 37-year-old Peck has become a leading face of dance. She’s written books aimed at young dancers, appeared in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s scripted show on Amazon and increasingly turned her attention toward designing her own works.
Peck will bring one of those shows to Chicago this month, when “Turn It Out with Tiler Peck and Friends” premieres locally at the Auditorium. The program, which she calls her “love letter to dance,” features four works designed for the show, including a Peck original.
On stage, she is joined by fellow New York City Ballet dancers, including her husband, Roman Mejia, whom she married last year in a wedding ceremony covered by “Vogue.” They will be joined by artists from other dance genres, including “So You Think You Can Dance” winner Lex Ishimoto and tap star Michelle Dorrance.
Since the show’s premiere in 2022 in New York, Peck has brought the work to London and cities across the U.S. The upcoming pair of performances in Chicago give local audiences a rare opportunity to see Peck dance without having to travel. (She was originally slated to perform with the New York City Ballet at Chicago’s Harris Theater in 2024, but pulled out of those shows due to a foot injury.)
As Peck prepares to return to the Midwest, WBEZ’s Courtney Kueppers spoke with the dancer about how “Turn It Out” came to be, what she’s excited about next and whether audiences can expect to see more of her original choreography (yes). This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
You've said this is the most deeply personal show that you’ve put together. Tell me more.
This is the first show that I've ever put together that was kind of like my baby, meaning I conceived every single piece on the program. “Thousandth Orange,” I choreographed. “The Barre Project,” I had the idea to reach out to William Forsythe and ask him if he would want to work together during COVID and this is the piece that we came up with for that. [The piece, which features music from James Blake, was created entirely via Zoom and had its digital premiere via livestream in March 2021.]
And then I also reached out to Alonzo King and that's how “Swift Arrow” came about. And then I knew I had these three pieces that really cohesively worked together, and I knew I needed one more to kind of end the evening out. I knew I wanted to work with my good friend Michelle Dorrance [who created “Time Spell,” the fourth work on the program, with Peck and Jillian Meyers], just because she's so inspiring, and I feel like she really challenges me.
It feels like the show turns classical ballet on its head. And you've talked about how you play with some other genres, like contemporary and tap. What's that like for you?
I love a challenge. I feel like that's what keeps me going in life. I've never been a good tap dancer. I would like to be, but I think that that's why I find I'm just so intrigued with Michelle [Dorrance], and I think that she's like, the only person I say that ever makes me feel unmusical. I think I'm a pretty musical dancer, but somehow she hears beats and rhythm even more intensely and intricately than I do. So I love putting myself in a room with her and challenging myself. I work really hard to make sure I can hang with her.
You are putting on your choreographer hat here. I'm curious, as someone who's been dancing your whole life, what is it like for you to step into that role?
What's nice is that I find when you have a living choreographer, [the piece] can kind of transform the different times it goes. And I feel like [“Thousandth Orange”] is finally at its strongest, which has been really nice to see it develop. It was the second work I ever choreographed at all. And so to see it from that beginning to now is something I really enjoy.
I feel like it’s the most classical [work] of the entire evening, so if you were thinking you were going to come to a ballet show, maybe that was the one piece that you would see, and then everything else is something I feel like you wouldn't see me do at New York City Ballet. It was actually Misha [Baryshnikov], who was the one when I was telling him about the program, he suggested, “You need one of your pieces on the program.” And he kind of gave me the confidence to put it out there, and I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't given me the little push.
Are you interested in doing more choreographing?
Yeah, I'm doing my second work for the New York City Ballet this May. And I've really enjoyed making works. I think that as long as I continue to see myself growing and I think each work hopefully gets better and better, then I'll keep doing it.
Apart from the people in this show, who are the really exciting choreographers to you in dance right now?
Oh, goodness. I mean, I feel so spoiled getting to work at the New York City Ballet, because we get to work with so many of them. I've been with Justin Peck forever. We have Alexei Ratmansky, who I think is, to me, one of the most brilliant choreographers of our time. I've gotten to work with Christopher Wheeldon so many times, and I think he makes the most beautiful pas de deux. I've never worked with Crystal Pite and I think she's amazing. We don't have many female choreographers that are like staples, and I've always wanted to work with her.
The videos you post on Instagram make this elite world of dance feel very accessible. Is that a goal? To give people a window into this world?
I think that in the earlier days, ballet was a little bit more untouchable, and ballerinas were sort of maybe like divas, and that's just so not my personality. So I think it's my way of saying, “this is our world, and not everybody is maybe the way you think it is.” I think that making ballet more accessible and relatable is really important.
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.