Ballet stars curate US series
SINCE his career as a dance-maker took off just five years ago, New York City Ballet resident choreographer Justin Peck has travelled the US creating works for companies large and small. Personally, professionally and artistically, he’s been deeply involved in ballet across the US.
Fittingly, having lived its moniker, Peck curated part of the Ballet Across America series at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,.
“I’ve been exercising a different part of my brain,” said Peck with a laugh. “I’m used to just creating new ballets.” Instead, the 29-year-old Peck has taken on a directing role, selecting works and companies he admires and bringing them together.
He calls it a “personal-taste sort of programme”.
This is the fourth iteration of the Ballet Across America series, which debuted in 2008. In the past, the Kennedy Center’s director of dance programming, Meg Booth, curated the series, which allows generally small, regional companies to perform a single work on a shared programme with other troupes.
This year, for the first time, the Kennedy Center chose two guest curators: Peck, a New York City Ballet soloist as well as a choreographer, and American Ballet Theatre principal Misty Copeland.
Neither one is dancing in the series; their contributions have been behind the scenes. They each put together a programme that will run for three performances.
Copeland’s, from today until Friday, features the Nashville Ballet, in artistic director Paul Vasterling’s Concerto; the New York-based Complexions Contemporary Ballet in Dwight Rhoden’s Star Dust, a tribute to David Bowie; and the Black Iris Project, performing artistic director Jeremy McQueen’s Madiba, a tribute to Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013.
Peck’s programme runs on Saturday and Sunday, with LA Dance Project, performing artistic director Benjamin Millepied’s Hearts and Arrows; the Joffrey Ballet, in Christopher Wheeldon’s Fool’s Paradise; the contemporary-dance troupe Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, offering Abraham’s The Gettin’, and two Miami City Ballet dancers in a duet from Peck’s Year of the Rabbit.
“It’s as much about the companies that are being presented as it is about specific works,” he said.
LA Dance Project has “some of the most exciting dancers working right now. They have a strong ballet base, but at the same time their range spans modern dance and new and contemporary choreography.”
Hearts and Arrows, in which the dancers wear heeled boots instead of ballet slippers and perform to music by Philip Glass, epitomises that mix of athleticism and classical form, Peck said.
He and Abraham have formed something of a mutual admiration society, checking out each other’s new works. The Gettin’ channels the activist spirit in the seminal 1960 jazz album by virtuoso drummer Max Roach, We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite.
Peck attended the 2007 premiere of Wheeldon’s Fool’s Paradise, created for the latter’s short-lived company Morphoses. It left an unforgettable impression of an artist deeply inspired by his dancers.
“It’s a ballet that hasn’t been seen that much,” Peck said, and he was delighted when the Joffrey Ballet revived it.
Both Peck and Copeland are established names in their art-forms, but handing them the reins for a major event on the Kennedy Center’s ballet subscription series is a risk. Why did the centre decide on guest curators, and on these artists?
“We are an artist-driven institution,” said Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter. “My concept has been about bringing artists more centrally into the development of the programming we’re doing. So often artists are travelling the world and collaborating with different artists, so they bring another perspective to it.”
Booth selected Peck and Copeland to ensure “balance and opportunity” in the programmes, she said. “I wanted a choreographer’s voice in Justin and the voice of a dancer in Misty. And a balance in gender. And I very intentionally made sure we had an African-American represented.”
In a video clip on the Kennedy Center’s website, Copeland notes the opportunities that the companies she picked offer to African-American dancers.
The series opened with a one-off programme on Monday, hosted by New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns, featuring dancers from American Ballet Theatre, Miami City Ballet and Nashville Ballet, among others.
The works include excerpts from Peck’s ballet Chutes and Ladders and Antony Tudor’s 1975 The Leaves Are Fading and other pieces. There will also be two short, world-premiere films by Ezra Hurwitz featuring American Ballet Theatre dancers. – Washington Post