Justin Peck ( Washington, DC ., 1987 ), American ballet dancer and choreographer who earned acclaim as a soloist but was best known for creating ballets in which complex structures frame clearly articulated classical steps. He became a resident choreographer for the New York City Ballet (NYCB) in 2014 .
Biographical synthesis
Peck grew up in San Diego. He studied the form of dance along with musical theater. At age 13, Peck appeared in San Diego as a one-week supernumerary for Giselle of the American Ballet Theater (ABT). ABT’s strong male directors inspired Peck to begin classical training at the California Ballet. At age 15, Peck began attending NYCB’s School of American Ballet (SAB). As a SAB student, Peck studied music and attended evening performances that featured the choreography of NYCB co-founder George Balanchine .
In 2006 , Peck became a NYCB trainee, joining the company’s corps de ballet the following year. He was promoted to the rank of soloist in 2013 .
Artistic career
In 2009 he created his first work, A Teacup Plunge , for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative . That year he also participated in the New York Choreographic Institute . Then, in 2011 , Peter Martins , NYCB’s chief ballet teacher, granted Peck his first choreographic residency. Peck produced six works for the company in the next two years. Among them are Year of the Rabbit ( 2012 ), an ensemble piece with the music of Sufjan Stevens, and Paz de la Jolla ( 2013 ).
In 2014 , Peck took over as NYCB’s resident choreographer. By the end of 2015 , he had more than two dozen creations to his credit, including Everywhere We Go ( 2014 ), a second collaboration with Stevens and the Debonair Commissions (2014) for Pacific Northwest Ballet and Heatscape ( 2015 ) for Miami City Ballet . Additionally, NYCB premiered its ‘ Rōdē, ō: Four Dance Episodes and New Blood in 2015. Peck’s pieces not only brought him critical acclaim but also drew a new audience of twenty-somethings to the ballet. Peck made his debut inBroadway in 2018 , choreographing the revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel . He won a Tony Award that year for his work.
Peck’s accomplishments in the world of dance and beyond earned him the nickname of prodigy. It was the subject of filmmaker Jody Lee Lipes’ Ballet 422 (2014) , a documentary that followed Peck for two months as he created NYCB’s original dance number 422, Paz de la Jolla . That year, the 2wice Arts Foundation also partnered with Peck and NYCB Director Daniel Ulbricht to develop the Passe-Partout iPad app. . The program allowed users to mix up moving phrases choreographed by Peck and performed by him and Ulbricht. Peck, whose career showed no signs of slowing down, remained a NYCB soloist; was the second dance creator to fill the position of resident choreographer.
