Earlier this year, Justin Peck, New York City Ballet鈥檚 Resident Choreographer and Artistic Advisor, was given what is perhaps the ultimate compliment a dancemaker might hope for from his dancers and other artistic collaborators: a crowd-sourced analysis of his style by those who know it from within. (鈥淲hat Makes a Peck a Peck鈥� by Genevieve Smith, ). Complete with photographs and online videos, it shows the isometric dynamics of his movements and their paradoxical coordination. The ballerina Tiler Peck, for instance, compares his manipulation of groups to the working of a Rubik鈥檚 cube. This remarkable analysis of how those magical effects are made is a tribute from those who embody and help to realize them, an example of how deeply an artist can be not only appreciated, but seen.
In Peck鈥檚 Copland Dance Episodes, you can see all these elements and others at work. However, there is a context for them that suggests meaning. The structure of the libretto in the program鈥�22 episodes, each with its own title鈥攇ives a clue that, although there is no declared narrative, the ballet is not story-less. Its relationship to the music becomes a story in itself, and, from there, the action guides the viewer鈥檚 thoughts outward to social themes. (To build the score, Peck used Fanfare for the Common Man and Aaron Copland鈥檚 own suites for Rodeo and Appalachian Spring, as well as much of the full score for Billy the Kid. NYCB鈥檚 orchestra plays the Copland sumptuously, with pleasure and commitment.)
Peck responds to each of Copland鈥檚 long musical lines, canonic interludes, and unexpectedly accented phrases with the assurance of a person in his own home. He does not set up a conversation with the music; he marries it, registering its emotions and its tonal variety while also creating imagery that invokes 鈥渃ommon man鈥� situations, such as horseplay among peers, a romantic couple on a carousel, a trio who share space but not interior worlds.
Manipulating light, space, and choreography, Peck effects astonishing transformations. A hand that is tendered in a moment of submission becomes, once grasped, the agent of disunion. A head gently resting on a heart (a detail that Peck has slyly plucked from Agnes de Mille鈥檚 Rodeo and recontextualized), placed on that heart once too often, lightly yet decisively becomes the lever for divorcement. A section that ends with several male figures Biblically pointing straight skyward is revised in a subsequent section that ends with several female figures pointing forward into the future on a 45-degree angle, and that image is subsequently revised by a group of male and female figures seated in a circle, each lifting one leg with the foot pointed (the circle invoking a nocturnal moment in Billy when Eugene Loring鈥檚 outlaw is triggered into ruminations by a campfire).
A woman鈥檚 variation to the 鈥淪imple Gifts鈥� tune from Appalachian Spring does not quite lasso the entire herd of conflicting emotions that animate the Bride of Martha Graham鈥檚 frontier-wedding masterpiece, but the more joyous qualities are caught on the fly. An early duet, with a partnered cartwheel and little catch step piquantly sited on the music, is one of Peck鈥檚 loveliest.
Copland Dance Episodes is bathed in color as well as pure light: Greeting the audience is Jeffrey Gibson鈥檚 front curtain, both minimalist in its geometric targets and triangles and maximalist in its multicolored profusion of forms, as he puts it in his biographical note in the program, 鈥渋nspired by indigenous American artifacts with the lyrics and psychedelic palette of disco music.鈥� It鈥檚 also noted that although Gibson鈥檚 work 鈥渇uses his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage and experience of living in Europe, Asia, and the USA,鈥� its references 鈥渟pan club culture, queer theory, fashion, politics, literature, and art history.鈥� The ballet is marvelously lit by Brandon Stirling Baker; the cast is costumed in Ellen Warren鈥檚 leotards with trunks, or tops with tights, each person given a unique combination of deeply saturated, contrasting hues.
Welcome to the 21st century. In case the audience forgets that鈥檚 where we are, the ballet opens on a tableau of the full cast, each person uniquely positioned and wrapped in a transparent tulle-like packaging. Nearly everyone then runs off into the wings to remove the wicked caul of yesteryear and returns in up-to-the-minute living color, bright-eyed with eagerness to, once again, embark on Peck鈥檚 westering of their spirits.
Copland Dance Episodes is performed by New York City Ballet February 11, 13, 17 at 2pm, and 21, 2024.
Mindy Aloff is a dance writer in New York City. Her book of essays, Why Dance Matters, was published this year by Yale University Press.
