It’s three years since we last saw Tiler Peck on the Sadlers Wells stage and what a joy it is to have her back. As a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, it comes as no surprise that she possesses a dazzling technique – flawless speed, accuracy, fluidity – and has brought together a formidable set of dancers, some of them also NYCB but there’s a huge mix here and fusion is a big part of the night.
As for the “Turn it Out” handle, this goes back to the dark days of Covid when Peck had an online “Turn it out with Tiler” ballet class that had some 15,000 students. That wasn’t all she did. With the renowned choreographer William Forsythe, she created the first piece of the evening, a collaboration that goes back to the very bones of ballet. Peck with three male dancers (Lex Ishimoto, Brooklyn Mack and Roman Meija – all of them were with her three years ago) start in turn at the barre where the rondes de jambes and the frappés are the daily round of dancers.
The Barre Project, Blake Works II then sees the dancers break away from the barre putting the flesh – and the soul – on those ballet bones. At the very heart of this is musicality and Peck and her dancers are the very embodiment here of James Blake’s music, playing and teasing their way through a technique which is little short of perfection.
Blake’s music is recorded but, for the rest of the evening, the musicians are playing onstage alongside the dancers. In Thousandth Orange, choreographed by Peck, there’s a quartet of Joonas Pekonen (violin), Tuulia Hero (viola), Patrick Moriarty (cello) and Stephanie Tang (piano) and, in front of them, six dancers interweave within complex ever-changing patterns repeatedly freezing into beautiful tableaux. Swift Arrow is an intimate duet choreographed by Alonzo King for Peck and Roman Meija with Joel Wernhardt playing Jason Moran’s limpid piano score.
The finale is an absolute barnstormer. Time Spell brings in not only the entire company of classically trained dancers, there are too a quartet of hoofers. The almost-forgotten and joyous art of tap combines both with ballet and a score provided by the voices, hand claps and stomping of just two musicians – Brinae Ali and Aaron Marcellus Sanders. Choreographed by Peck, Jillian Meyers and the tap virtuoso Michelle Dorrance (along with plenty of improvisation from all the dancers) the two multi-talented musicians join in the action, too, for a finale that blurs all boundaries and releases euphoria onto the stage.
It is, as ever, all too short a run with just two more performances to go. So, if you’re looking in these dismal days for an evening of pure joy and pure dance, this is it. My advice? Just cancel everything and get a ticket.
The remaining performances of Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends are at Sadlers Wells on 14th and 15th March. For more information, and for tickets, please visit www.sadlerswells.com.
