Ballet would have been buried in mothballs long ago if not for the house that brilliant Balanchine built. This year that institution, the New York City Ballet, is celebrating its 75th birthday—in style. The fall season homed in on Balanchine’s own works; the remaining two seasons are turning to his legacy. Featured prominently this spring is resident choreographer Justin Peck. The 36-year-old is much in the news, as Illinoise—the Sufjan Stevens dancical that he choreographed, directed, and helped conceive—has just hit Broadway. Of the five NYCB programs that include contemporary work, Peck ballets grace three: Classical NYCB I and II as well as All-Stravinsky (hence, the whole spring calendar linked below). Besides a new duet for Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia to a vital Vijay Iyer score, look out for Peck’s astounding NYCB choreographic debut—the 2012 Sufjan Stevens-scored Year of the Rabbit—and the 2017 Pulcinella Variations, which finds the dancemaker at his most neoclassical, melancholy, and tender. —Apollinaire Scherr