All choreography comes from a maker’s experience of her body; its relation to space, to music, its distinctive kinetic impulses, capacities and even its limitations, which might spur a dance maker to try things she isn’t particularly good at.
Some show this more obviously than others; their dance voice clearly linked to the way they move. Tiler Peck, star ballerina at New York City Ballet, is — so far in her career — this kind of choreographer, at least for the female dancers in her work.
In her new work “Grandes Études,” for Northern Ballet in England, Peck’s dancerly gifts are manifest: Speed, virtuosity, coordination, musicality.
Peck is a rare breed; a successful female choreographer still dancing at the peak of her powers. Her first piece was a small-scale trio at the Vail Dance Festival in 2018. Since then she has created works for Northern Ballet, Boston Ballet and for her own touring ensemble, as well as two well-received ballets for her home company. Last week, she was named choreographic associate at City Ballet, joining the lustrous ranks of Alexei Ratmansky and Justin Peck as an in-house choreographer — the first woman to hold such a position.
On Tuesday night, Northern Ballet, based in Leeds, performed Peck’s new “Grandes Études” in its London premiere at the Linbury Theater in the Royal Opera House, on a program with Hans van Manen’s “5 Tangos,” and Mthuthuzeli November’s “Fools,” a theatrically effective and strongly performed take on “Romeo and Juliet,” set in a South African township.
The gala opening evening had a few extras too: three pas de deux that combined principal dancers from Northern Ballet and the Royal Ballet, and a smoldering star turn from the Royal Ballet principal Cesar Corrales in “5 Tangos.”
“Grandes Études,” set to Liszt’s “Grandes Études de Paganini” (1851) is Peck’s second work for the Northern Ballet, and like her first — “Intimate Pages,” to Janacek’s Second String Quartet — it tackles a challenging score.
Liszt translated the revolutionary virtuosity of Paganini’s fiendishly difficult violin pieces into a series of technical challenges for the piano that require (among other things) accuracy at crazy speed, leaps of the hands across the keyboard, soaring, overlapping arpeggios and delicate rippling scales. (All praise to the pianist, the impressive Rose McLachlan.)
You can see why this would appeal to Peck; a dazzling dancer whose virtuosity lies not just in technical mastery, but in musicality and phrasing, which can create a magical illusion of space and time within the movement.
“Grandes Études” begins with a female quartet, in pastel chiffon dresses (costumes by Carly Marsh), grouped in a circle, their curving arms evoking figures on a Greek vase. As waves of scales crescendo up and down the piano, four men appear, briefly dance with the women, then leave one couple (Kirica Takahashi and Miguel Teixeira) alone for an extended pas de deux as the music moves into a more lyrical melody.
The tone is of romantic yearning as Teixeira swirls Takahashi across his back, propels her in high, jumped lifts, and they entwine in swooping supported adagio passages. Two other couples whirl in and out; the central pair remain absorbed in their private world. (Takahashi bears a look of generic noble suffering that suggests they are doomed but bravely hanging on.)
Peck offers a series of vignettes over the next five études that frequently recall Jerome Robbins’s “Dances at a Gathering.” A woman in lemon yellow consorts playfully with two men, who lift her between them, in delicate accord with the staccato chords and quick trills of the piano. A flirtatious dance for Sarah Chun, in pink, has a man interrupting for a bit, then leaving her dancing happily alone, Couples come and go, sometimes teasing, sometimes romantic. Unexpected juxtapositions and groupings bloom and fade. (Peck is good at this.)
In the final étude, No. 6 in A minor with its jaunty melody, breathtaking overlapping arpeggios and astonishingly speedy riffs, Peck gets everyone onstage in intersecting formations, with a final moment for the full ensemble before the women are carried off in high, floating arabesques.
It’s fluent, assured and pretty — and difficult for the dancers (bravo to all), who must combine precision and delicacy with athletic speed and attack. In short, they must dance like Peck.
But “Grandes Études” doesn’t build a world of its own, and its structure appears arbitrary. The fleeting moods — happy, sad, charming, yearning — feel imposed upon the dancers, not derived from the music or especially reactive to it. (A waltz at the end of the “Campanella” étude no. 3 is a rare moment when Peck’s choreographic response to the music is intriguing.) The dance sections, unlike the études, blur and blend in the mind.
The Northern Ballet dancers have no doubt learned a lot from trying to dance like Tiler Peck. If there is a next time with this company, perhaps she will give them the gift of revealing themselves.
Three Short Ballets
Through Friday at the Linbury Theater, Royal Opera House, rbo.org.uk.
The post Review: Tiler Peck the Choreographer Channels Tiler Peck the Dancer appeared first on New York Times.
