For this program dedicated to ballets by Justin Peck, New York City Ballet is likely counting on spillover audience from the resident choreographer’s Sufjan Stevens musical, Illinoise, which just completed a three-month run on Broadway. The comradely and zippy Everywhere We Go, to the singer-songwriter’s shape-shifting original score for full orchestra and no voices, is not only a lure to Broadway regulars and Sufjan fans but also a failsafe way for the ballet-leery to dip their toe in. Peck’s early In Creases, to Stravinsky, and his recent Partita, to the astounding contemporary composer Caroline Shaw’s crushingly dense cantata for eight voices, are thornier but at least as compelling. The paradox of Peck is that the less he worries about “relatability,” the more poignant and absorbing the work is. In Creases is a lonely boy’s ode to joy: the joy of pattern and of flight. Partita’s emotional tenor is looser, more delicate and inchoate—more mature, in a word. —Apollinaire Scherr
The Arts Intel Report
New York City Ballet: All Peck
New York City Ballet in Justin Peck’s Partita.
When
Sept 24 – Oct 13, 2024
Where
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, United States
Etc
Photo: Erin Baiano