When Justin Peck was a teenage ballet dancer, âjust a little punk kid, trying to make my wayâ, he wrote a letter to a musician he admired, the singer-songwriter-producer Sufjan Stevens. Heâd heard an orchestral suite Stevens had written, The BQE, and thought this was perfect music for dance. âSo I just wrote: âHey, if you would ever want to collaborate or, you know, make a dance or make a ballet, let me know.â And of course, I didnât hear back.â
But here I am, talking to Peck on a video call about his new show, entirely set to the music of, youâve guessed it, Sufjan Stevens, specifically his 2005 album, Illinois. Not such a pipe dream after all, it turns out. Billed as âa new kind of musicalâ, Illinoise (as the stage version is titled) has no dialogue, but a story told through song lyrics and the dancersâ movement, âalmost like a silent filmâ, says Peck.
Illinoise is not the first collaboration between Peck and Stevens, who were introduced by a mutual friend some years after the letter. By that point, Peck was no longer a little punk kid but Americaâs choreographic wunderkind, made resident choreographer at New York City Ballet at 26, where he was already a dancer. He has been touted as an heir to Jerome Robbins; a maker of beautiful, technical, highly musical dance that is also fresh and youthful, rooted in classicism but decidedly modern. Peckâs dancers, who might wear sneakers instead of pointe shoes, or dance gender-neutral roles, are as likely to move to music by Bryce Dessner of the National or French electronic band M83 as to Aaron Copland or Stravinsky. In Peckâs work, the bodies on stage seem like real young people, with that much prized 21st-century quality: authenticity.
Considering heâs the most lauded American ballet choreographer to emerge this century, itâs surprising that Peckâs work has hardly been seen in the UK (San Francisco Ballet brought one of his pieces to London in 2019), but if you have seen Bradley Cooperâs sailor dance in Maestro or Steven Spielbergâs West Side Story, or even Jennifer Lawrence as a ballerina turned spy in Red Sparrow, then youâve seen Peckâs work. And there will be a chance to see more when New York City Ballet comes to London in March, with Peckâs 2020 piece Rotunda sharing a bill with UK premieres from Pam Tanowitz, Kyle Abraham and a classic by NYCBâs co-founder George Balanchine.
Rotunda is a good example of what Peckâs become known for. An abstract one-act ballet, itâs set to music by contemporary composer Nico Muhly, in a work Peck says âfeels almost like a math equation, even though itâs so beautifulâ. Performed in what looks like practice gear, itâs a piece, says Peck, about âthe process and repetition of the dancerâs craftâ. The dance meets the rhythm and structure of the music with exactitude; thereâs speed and athleticism but an easy, unforced quality, too. It feels like a community of dancers whose steps emerge with spontaneity.
That sense of community is also in Illinoise, which features a group of people sitting round a fire sharing their stories. âIt speaks to the origins of theatre, gathering round the campfire, the sort of magic that comes with the light and heat, and [saying]: âOK, letâs entertain one another,ââ says Peck, who developed the scenario with Pulitzer-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury. Stevens was less involved: âHeâs had a really hard year,â says Peck, referring to the death of Stevensâs partner Evans Richardson, and his being diagnosed with the autoimmune condition Guillain-Barré syndrome. âHeâs had to work to regain his ability to walk.â
Whether itâs conscious or not, community has always been the theme that runs through Peckâs work. âI think itâs because Iâve struggled so much, like: âWhere do I belong? What is my community?â So I feel like Iâm always trying to build it.â
Peck grew up in a âsleepy surf townâ north of San Diego, where he was always restless. âI didnât feel like I connected with a lot of people and I had, I would say, a very lonely childhood and not a lot of friends.â His mum was born and raised in Argentina but her roots are in Ukraine. His dad was a New Yorker reluctantly transplanted to California. Peck went to a huge, sports-focused high school, âwhere it was very easy to get lost. So I was this lost boy in this world that was sort of terrifying. I donât want to feel like that again and I donât want other people to feel that.â
Every summer, however, Peckâs dad would take the family to New York for a week to sponge up culture. Theyâd see a lot of theatre, and Peck took up tap dancing, inspired by Savion Glover in hit musical Bring in âda Noise, Bring in âda Funk. He got involved in local theatre and then ballet. âBallet was kind of the last stop, so itâs ironic Iâve fallen into this world. I feel like an outsider, like itâs not really my thing, but, um, it is.â
It definitely is. Peck got a place at the School of American Ballet at 15, and in New York found where he belonged, back where his fatherâs family came from. His grandfather was civil rights activist James Peck, who took part in the Freedom Rides challenging segregation in the south in the early 60s and was jailed more than 50 times, Peck tells me with pride. Thereâs not a huge amount of politics in Peckâs work, although his piece The Times Are Racing was made during the 2016 election campaign. He tells how in one scene a ballerina climbed on to a group of people âand she stands there triumphantly. And I was thinking: âOh, itâs sort of like a tribute to our next president, Hillary Clinton.â It was going to be this iconic thing,â he says. And then the next day Trumpâs win was announced. âIt changed the whole arc of the piece,â says Peck. âWe decided that the next motion would be for her to fall and be swallowed up.â The final work turned into a piece about protest and freedom of speech, the right to organise collectively âand find the power in that assembly and that sense of communityâ, says Peck, using that word again.
Will he have to make a sequel now Trump is back in the running? âOh God, I donât want to think about that,â he laughs, shaking his tousled head, a touch of the young Adrien Brody about his features. Would another Trump presidency affect his working world, the ballet, the theatre? âIt does feel like weâre able to exist in this bubble of art and dance-making, but even that has the potential to be threatened,â he says. âI just think it would create a further divide in this country that will ripple through in ways I canât even fathom.â
Peck is a fixture at New York City Ballet, but heâs always looking for new, unpredictable projects. One of the things that attracted him to Sufjan Stevensâs work is that heâs not an artist who stays in a single lane, and Peck is the same, deftly leaping from choreographing a music video for the National (which he also directed) to doing Carousel on Broadway, an advert with Dolly Parton or a fashion show for Opening Ceremony. He recently co-choreographed a show based on Buena Vista Social Club with his Cuban-American wife, Patricia Delgado. Maybe weâll even get to see more of him in the UK. Heâd love Illinoise to come here. âI just think itâs the kind of show audiences there would really connect with,â he says, a chance to expand his community, you could say. âI hope that it can happen.â
Rotunda is part of New York City Ballet Mixed Bill, at Sadlerâs Wells, London, 7 to 10 March. Illinoise is at Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2 to 23 March.