Zitat des Tages von Justin Peck:
American ballet... is ultimately an evolutionary art form, requiring many voices to creatively carry forward.
Ballet dancers are among the greatest living athletes.
My philosophy on choreography is that the making of a ballet is a team effort, and we're in this together. It's not me hammering on them. It's more about how we can elevate this piece collectively to something great.
I always feel that the mark of a good ballet is that when you see it more than once, you get more out of it.
George Balanchine is my role model because his work is so varied. You can see two ballets of his and not even realize that they are by the same choreographer.
To me, dance and ballet are not so accessible.
I'm always interested in linking dance to mundane behavior that everyone can relate to.
It's expensive to get studio space and dancers. My whole first three years, I was sneaking around in the studios and getting kicked out of them. It was kind of depressing.
I never intended to dance in my own work, but we did what had to be done.
I've always felt that Balanchine is my ultimate teacher. I learn the most from observing his work and also dancing in it.
There's an innate feeling when I choreograph in juxtaposition to how I feel as a dancer. When I choreograph, I never really look into the mirror. But as dancers, we always check ourselves in the mirror. I do feel that when I choreograph, I am making a dance on my own body. Much of it is my own response to the music.
If I get a commission, it's like a flood of creative thought and energy.
It's probably what I'm most interested in as a choreographer: how I can alter and shift and develop the structure of a piece and of the space.
When I'm in sneakers, it changes my body carriage. I feel more in my own skin.
I think ballet has a bad reputation of being stuffy and depleted.
There is a clearing for new creative thought in choreography. I don't feel intimidated; there is a lot I can do that is new or innovative or different.
Balanchine is the number one influence for me. His work was really musically driven. He and Jerome Robbins were the ones who really showed me that dance could be about the inner relation between movement and music. When I was a student first seeing their work, I was like, 'Oh, this is a thing?'
I think that story ballets, as great as they might sell, they're a really dated and awkward medium to tell stories through. I think there needs to be an updated or different approach to storytelling in dance. There needs to be less of a separation between the storytelling and the dancing.
I grew up going on vacations with my family to New York every summer, and it's something that I always looked forward to. They'd take me to theater and shows and interesting restaurants, so I was genuinely really excited to move there.
My intention is to make sure that the new work being created for the ballet world is relevant.
I'm trying to create ballets that I would enjoy seeing.
I try and create choreography that's in conversation with the music that the audience is hearing.
There's something refreshing about going to work with a different group of dancers. There are different ways of moving, different ways in which the institution functions. There's a contrast from place to place, so the variety and the experience of working in a different place feeds me.
My grandfather James Peck was a civil rights activist.
I've always liked vintage posters of California beaches.
It's nice to have the support and infrastructure to do what I want creatively. That's kind of a rare thing to find.
I'm really interested in working with groups. It's a very simple thing for me, and if I'm given the option to work with two people or 10 or 20 people, I'm going to take 10 or 20. I just think there's so much more I can do with that.
