BALLET NOW

On the recent Hulu documentary about Tiler Peck.

performance of 1 2 3 4 5 6 from BALLET NOW

"See the music, hear the dance" -George Balanchine

Tiler's Task

Tiler Peck, from the NYCB, is the first women to be asked to curate the program for the LA Music Center's BALLET NOW program. She is in control of the music and dance pieces, which dancers will be in them, and will be dancing in most of the pieces. She only has a week of rehearsals for about six different pieces with dancers who have not danced together. She chose dancers who are mainly corps dancers which gave them an opportunity to dance roles they wouldn't normally be given. We see a scene of her talking on the phone to her mom listing all the bigger tasks she has to do, then the obstacles she has to work around, and then all her worries about her own ability to fulfill her responsibility. The dance world is so run by men she wants to show she and other women are capable.

Musicality is Key

Tiler's opening number feature herself en pointe with a clown actor/dancer. The dance is very comedic while still being technical. The comedic choreography had specific counts that needed to land at specific points of the music in order to land. "Comedic timing is very dependent on the orchestra... something that takes a lot of rehearsal.", Tiler stated, but she only had a handful of days and they didn't have too much time to stumble with steps. Another piece very connected to the dancer's relationship with music was 123456. Tiler was dancing en point with two tappers, on hip hop dancer, and no music. Most times through the dance they held the counts by clapping all at the same tempo, but not one clap per count. This dance specifically showed how music needs to be in the dancer's mind at all times. All four of them had to have the same counts going through their head in order to dance the steps together and not be going off music, but by trusting that they all were counting exactly the same.

Conductor and Dancer

Tiler had the opportunity to speak and consult with the program's conductor about the music for each piece. She asked for specific parts to be at certain tempos, so the dancers could work better with their choreography and the piece as a whole would look a certain way. She stated that this was an experience entirely new to her since at the NYCB the choreographers did were not usually supposed to talk and ask things of the conductors (this was shown in Ballet 422). Balanchine believe that the dancers and choreographers should remain separate from the conductors. He thought the conductors should focus on their work and have the orchestra play their best and the dancers will work with the music and tempo that was played.