(341) Choreographer Justin Peck on his newest work for Houston Ballet
Today on 'Conversations On Dance', we are joined by choreographer Justin Peck to discuss his new work for Houston Ballet 'Under the Folding Sky'. Justin talks about how seeing the art work of James Turrell in Houston provided a jumping off point, how he's waited for almost a decade to use the ballet's Phillip Glass score and what it's been like to explore an epic scale of dance in this work for 24 artists. If you are in the Houston area, you can purchase tickets to see Justin's new work on houstonballet.org. 'Under the Folding Sky' runs on the 'Divergence' program alongside works by Aszure Barton and Stanton Welch from May 25th to June 4th.
THIS EPISODE'S SPONSORS:
Ballet Bird is a streaming site designed by former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Julie Tobiason. Ballet Bird offers ballet classes for anyone at any level of training that you can do from the comfort of your home or studio. Ballet Bird is a great addition to your regular in-studio training too. Take advantage of the ten day free trial and use the discount code COD25 to get 25% off through June 30th 2023 at balletbird.com.
Energetiks are a sustainable, Australian Made brand that specialise in creating world class dancewear for the stars of tomorrow. Perform and feel your best at every stage of your dance journey in Energetiks’ premium, high performance fabrics. See their entire range online at energetiks.com and for all listeners there's a 20% discount on all Energetiks products using the code COD20 at the checkout [available until the end of September 2023].
LINKS:
Website: conversationsondancepod.com
Instagram: @conversationsondance
Merch: https://bit.ly/cod-merch
YouTube: https://bit.ly/youtube-COD
Join our email list: https://bit.ly/mail-COD
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was generated automatically. It’s accuracy may vary.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:00:58]:
I'm Rebecca King Ferraro.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:01:00]:
And I'm Michael Sean Breed, and you're.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:01:02]:
Listening to Conversations on Dance. Today on Conversations on Dance, we are joined by choreographer Justin Peck to discuss his new work for Houston Ballet under the folding sky. Justin talks about how seeing the artwork of James Terrell in Houston provided a jumping off point, how he's waited for almost a decade to use the ballet's Philip Glass score, and what it's been like to explore an epic scale of dance in this work for 24 artists. If you are in the Houston area, you can purchase tickets to see Justin's New York on houstonballet.org. Under the folding sky runs on the divergence program alongside works by Azure Barton and Stanton Welsh from May 25 to June 4.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:01:48]:
Justin, it's always a pleasure to have you on, but I'm particularly excited for this episode because while Rebecca and I have talked to artists of Houston Ballet a lot, neither one of us have had the opportunity to see them live. And so my reference point is always to them, I'm always saying, well, Justin Peck is raving about you guys, and he's such a big fan of yours. So I would love to hear just a little bit about the beginning of your relationship, what the first time you ever got to work with the dancers was.
Justin Peck [00:02:19]:
Sure, yeah, I love the company here. And let's see, we first started working together on a ballet of mine called you're the Rabbit, which I think is a really good kind of introduction to my work and a chance for me to collaborate on artists on something that's already existing. And it was kind of the first ballet I made or one of the first ballets I made for New York City Ballet. And so it's it's kind of an important work for me. And and so when when I first started a conversation with Stanton about working with the Houston Ballet, this was kind of a way in to familiarize with the company and get a sense of who they are and for them to get a sense of what my movement is like and what my work is like. And it was just yeah, it was a nice, kind of, like, way to ease in, and I was super impressed with them. I came to work with them a couple of times on that while it was being staged and then leading into the performances. And, yeah, I was just kind of blown away by many aspects of Houston Ballet. I think they have a phenomenal kind of bench of talent here. They have great resources and support for dance, and I think that comes from the city at large. I think it's a city that really values the arts. And you can feel that the communities here really support the arts, performing arts, the classical arts, the visual arts, that's all so much a part of Houston as a city. And it's like something we all don't realize unless you come here and you experience it. So that's very true in regards to the ballet as well. And they have beautiful, inspiring facilities here. And I think maybe also the fact that Stanton Welsh, the artistic director of the company here, is a choreographer and a dance maker in his own right, there's an extra attention placed on Cultivating new work, and it's something he understands firsthand, so he knows how to support that and how to kind of guide the company to support that as well.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:05:00]:
I wonder, as you're talking about Year of the Rabbit for some of our listeners who are just audience members and aren't dance, can you tell us what the process looks like for a ballet bean stage that's already in? Existence. And then how you come into that part of it and then versus something like this, where you're making a full new work, how is your role different?
Justin Peck [00:05:21]:
Yeah, that's a good question. With an existing work, the process starts with a stager or sometimes called a repetitor, who is kind of responsible for bringing that ballet to life. So they actually go to the company and work with them first. They set all the choreography. They work with the dancers. They kind of get the ballet up on its feet. And so that's actually, like, most of the work that goes into it. So they're usually working with the company for several weeks on that. And then if I'm able to, I will come in. Once the ballet is up on its feet, I'll come in and work with the dancers on the details and share some anecdotes or some thoughts behind the work and just try and sprinkle a little bit of magic into the process as much as I can leading into the piece, going on stage and being performed. So that's a really fun process. And it's usually these stagers or these repetitors are like mahlers in the work, like they know it inside and out and they have their systems for how they stage it, how they kind of archive the work. And it's an art form that is quite social. And so there's this kind of social back and forth in how the ballet has passed from one person to the next. So that's also a big part of that process. And for the repetitors who are staging the work, and it's an art form that goes from person to person. So it's unique in that way.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:07:20]:
Yeah, that's always what our old boss, Edward Vellis said. It has to be person to person. It is unique among art forms in that way. Something I want to hear a little bit more about is what in particular makes you tick about the Houston Valley artist? Because I was thinking about what we've heard from other choreographers who've worked with the company, and one thing that always comes up for them is acting like they're just fabulous actors, whereas the work that you do is typically plotless. So I'm imagining that there are other components to their artistic skill set that are drawing you in.
Justin Peck [00:07:58]:
Yeah, I've never done any narrative work with the Houston Ballet. Be interesting to do something like that with them, actually, so I could have.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:08:08]:
A little bit interesting idea.
Justin Peck [00:08:10]:
Yeah, but that's one of their strong suits because they do so many story ballets, a lot of full lengths, and they have a very strong classical technique, which is also something that I find really interesting for me to work with because it's just like a different style of movement from New York City Ballet. And I really appreciate kind of, their approach to the ballet technique. But I also think there's a real sense of musicality in this company. I know that's something that's of value here. I know it's something that Stanton prioritizes. And for me and my work, when I'm not working with story or with narrative, it's like the music is what it's all about. It's all about that interrelation of the music and the movement and the kind of world that we're creating amidst all that. And so they're very committed in that way towards that exploration. And there are some real standout artists here in the company who kind of talk about this sometimes, but it's like there are certain dancers who define the identity of a company if that company is in a really exciting place. Right. And I think of dancers like Tyler Donatelli, like Connor Walsh, like Jessica Colado, these are dancers who, when people ask me, like, who is the Houston Ballet? Those are the artists that immediately pop into my mind. And those are just a few names. There's many others here. And that's what makes them unique. And I think that the company is in a really great place right now, where there's a generation that's kind of at their peak form in terms of their dancing and their artistry, their performance on stage. And that's just like so exciting to get to participate in creatively, and it's something that doesn't last forever. There's always, like an ebb and flow with companies where they kind of have these peck moments, and then they kind of slope down, and then they rebuild. And maybe there's a new generation who kind of comes up, and there's transitional phases as well, and that's normal. And I guess you can equate that to even with sports and basketball teams, how there's like, you know, you you look at, like, the warriors and there's such there's such a there's such a grace to how they play. And they're these seasoned players right now who are doing exceptional things, and that might sort of have its moment where that time will end and then the rebuilds. I think that's also a big part of these ballet companies and I guess just the extraordinary level that is required to perform and execute ballet and how fleeting that can be, too.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:11:35]:
So you were mentioning how the artists of Houston Ballet, maybe their style is a little different from what you're used to at New York City Ballet. And so I wonder how that kind of changes your process. When you're at your home company in New York City Ballet, you walk in every dancer inside and out so well that you probably have such an idea of what you're going to do in the studio that day. How is that different when you're working with a company that you've worked with before, but you're not as intimately familiar with? And does that change kind of how you go into the studio each day and how you're maybe influenced by the dancers in front of you?
Justin Peck [00:12:09]:
Yeah. I am at a place now where this is my second new work for Houston Ballet. And they've done you're, the Rabbit. And I made it York for them a few years ago as well, where it's like now we're getting to a place where there is more of a shorthand, more of a creative relationship there that feels like I'm not starting from scratch, which I really like. I think that's part of the appeal of working with Houston Ballet is that kind of continuity with the process with them, but it's still a process of learning and trying to understand these dancers and who they are and where they come from and how all the internal dynamics work. This piece is a really big ballet that we're making here. So it's 24 dance, and it's a big jump from the last piece, which was for eleven dance, so it's impossible to know everyone inside and out. And so part of the process of making this piece is kind of discovering all these artists and new dancers who are just starting out here, and some soloists I've never worked with and things like that. And because it's such a big piece, it's basically almost the entire company in the studio working on this. Once you account for understates and second casts and all that, then yeah, then it feels like a good next step. And I'm excited about the piece. The piece feels different to me than anything I've made, actually. It's got some like I mentioned, it's a huge valet. But some of the group work is different from anything I've made. I feel like it kind of revealed to me what it wanted to be, as opposed to the other way around. So that's been, like, a nice part of the process as well.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:14:44]:
Right. Was the decision to expand, was that kind of in response to your level of comfort with the company? You're wanting to get to know the organization even better in a larger scope? Or was that like, we need a closer? Justin. We need 24 people on stage. How do you arrive at that kind of choice when you're at the beginning of the process?
Justin Peck [00:15:06]:
I think it was a conversation with Stanton about where to go next, and not necessarily that he was saying, we need a closer, we need a big piece. It was just sort of like, okay, what's next and what feels like the right step for this next commission for Houston Ballet. And we had several conversations about music selection and concept and what kind of piece and the scale of it and what sort of design elements would be included and how to sort of grow from the last experience that we had together here. So I don't know how I landed on 24 exactly, but the piece has this kind of life growth structure to it where it starts with one singular dancer in sight and that dancer eventually divides into two, and then those two divide into four, and so on and so forth. And suddenly we're getting 24 dancers kind of flying through space in almost this cosmic way. And some of the stuff they're doing is so intricate and expansive that it feels at times like there's, like, 60 dancers flying across the stage and can't quite account for everyone. So it has this build that starts very small from like a singular dancer to then full scale by the end.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:17:34]:
You were talking earlier about the city of Houston and how you feel that it has this support for the arts. And it makes me think of heatscape that you did at Miami City Ballet that was influenced a lot by Miami and we saw that a lot on stage. And so I wonder if there's any little bits and pieces of that in this work.
Justin Peck [00:17:53]:
Yeah, there are a big jumping off point for me for this work in particular came from, actually, the last time I was in Houston and I discovered this James Turrell exhibit at Rice University. And Turrell is known for his use of light in a very novel way. And this installation is so beautiful. It's this kind of, like, border cutout facing up towards the sky, and you kind of lean back and you look at light projected onto this frame. And the experience of the installation takes place only at sunrise and at sunset. And it's a kind of 40 minutes experience where Turrell creates this whole interplay with light, the light he creates against the changing light of the natural world. And it does really transcendent things to your perception of depth perception and perception of color and of light. And it was just really moving and kind of simple and meditative. And I love that it was something that was happening in real time, and that when you go to museum and you look at a painting on the wall, sometimes you'll look at it for 1 minute, two minutes, five or ten minutes maximum, and then you move on to something else. And this was an experience where you're sort of giving yourself over for the next 40 minutes to this thing that's shifting at a rate of, like, grass growing. And I sort of loved that. And it made me think a lot about the experience of going to the ballet and surrendering to sitting in your theater seat and the lights go down, and it's like, for the next 30 minutes or however long that act is, you're taking in this thing. And I wanted to create an experience that felt not, like, visually or aesthetically reflective of the terrell, but kind of conceptually inspired by that personal experience I felt here. And so that's been a big part of this influence on this piece is this kind of, like, ever shifting dance that's taking place on stage. And part of the way that we articulate that, I guess, is through a visual scenic design by the architect artist Carl Jensen. And Carl, who's actually a graduate of Rice University here, it's a little bit of a homecoming, in a way, for him to design for this work. And he's someone who I've worked with a couple of times in the past. He's the designer of the ballet Everywhere We Go, which I made in 2014 for New York City Ballet. And so he's Justin, kind of like this expert in working with sculpture, working with paper, working with physical, three dimensional, intricate things that exist in space. Another exciting thing about working with Houston Ballet is that they have an amazing potential and support in regards to production and what they can do scenically and what the theater can support and what the company can help sort of bring to life. And so we've created the scenic experience where what Carl has designed is sort of ever shifting over the course of the entire ballet. So it's continuously moving and changing shape and occupying the vertical space. And it's not something that you necessarily notice until you realize, oh, something looks different. Now, that's been a cool aspect of working here at Houston Ballet. And there's so much depth in the theater and what we can make. So that's been a big part of wanting to make something that feels, like, unique to Houston, to this company, and to this theater.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:22:33]:
Can you talk a little bit about how you figured out music that would serve this overall artistic vision? Did you use something that brought a preexisting score, or is it a newly commissioned work?
Justin Peck [00:22:45]:
Yeah, so that's definitely a big element in the mix of this, right? So it's like, okay, part one is like, Houston Ballet. Part two is this jumping off point from this Terrell exhibit. And then, of course, part three is what music to kind of bring all this together. And I was saying to someone that I feel like sometimes as artists or with the process of making art, it's about finding or making a sense of order from the chaos of the world just to give a little insight into my own process. It's like taking these things and finding the way that they all align properly to make the thing, and that becomes the ballet. And so I think the third element for this was sort of landing on the right piece of music. And there's a piece that I've been listening to for about a decade and just been sort of, like, waiting for the right moment to choreograph it. And it feels like this became the perfect moment to bring it in. And I'm glad I didn't choreograph to this music before this. But it's a score by Philip Glass, who is obviously a lot of dance makers, choreographer to Philip Glass's music. So I'm a little bit hesitant or reluctant to go there. So there has to be a really good reason to use some music by him. And I've only made, I think, like, one or two dance to his music. And so there's this score he wrote. It's actually an opera. It's from an opera called The Photographer. And the Photographer is an opera he wrote in the early 80s. It's not performed often, and I found a recording of it ten years ago and just became obsessed with it. And the third act of the opera feels like one great score for dance. And it has this quality of almost like a train starting from a completely dormant state and very slowly picking up speed. And then it gets a little faster and faster, and it's all incremental and builds and builds and builds, and the music gets to this place where it just almost like if a train could take flight, that feeling that happens until it sort of, like, comes to this crashland ending. So it's a really exciting score. And it felt like it works perfectly with the concept that we're trying to explore and present here. It's for full orchestra. It has the use of the sound of the voice in it, so there's no lyrics in it, but it has kind of like the voice as an instrument throughout it. I'm hoping that it'll be like one of those hidden gems that gets rediscovered after many years of not having it and played. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:26:14]:
Just while we're since we did earlier speak on Rabbit, which you mentioned was one of your earlier works that you've choreographer and now looking here in 2023, I always think about choreographers when they sit down in the audience for opening night. Like, what are you thinking? It's like everything's in the dancer's hands. You can't really do anything. How will the audience perceive it? And so I wonder too, how that's kind of shifted from the beginning of your career to now, now that you have such a body of work and you've had that experience of sitting in the audience and just letting it go so many times now.
Justin Peck [00:26:46]:
Well, it's kind of different every time and depending on the audience, depending on the work and the performance. So it's always really kind of a thrill. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not so great. And it's a full range, so it's like it's still an adrenaline rush and something I sort of enjoy in a way. And I find, like, watching performances of works that I've already made to be, like, much I mean, there's still a thrill to it, but it's much more diminished in a way. Yeah, there's something really special about that first time seeing or being present in the room for a piece that no audience has seen before. And it can be a struggle too, though, because I find, like, with new works, especially with the ballet, there's no opportunity to perform it in front of an audience until the actual opening. So I always say that the paint is still wet on the York and it usually takes like a full season for it to kind of, like, open up and breathe properly and for it to settle the fine wine. Yeah, I just flew back to see Copeland Dance episodes this past weekend and that's like a good example of I remember the opening night, it was just so compressed and, like, coiled and the energy was so high and the tempos were so fast. And now coming back and seeing it again, it's settled in this really amazing way and it was so moving to see the dancers own it and kind of know what it is now. And that also had kind of a thrill to it as well because Russell Janssen ended up dancing last minute with Mira Had Dance and so they've never danced together before. So it was the first time on stage they were performing together. So it's kind of exciting in that way. So, yeah, I think we'll see how the first performance goes and I'm sure it'll be a thrill, but it's also like, it's not a full kind of representation of what that work will become. I think.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:29:21]:
Well, there's many opportunities for audience members to see it multiple times if they'd like. It's running May 25 through June 4, so there's plenty of time to catch that ballet opening up.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:29:31]:
I'm glad you brought up Copeland Dance episodes because even just talking about this new work for Houston and it being this large scale work for 24 dancers and Copland is obviously very large as well. Is that something that you're very interested now in the same way a visual artist might be like, well, I'm in my pointalism era, I'm just going to make all these pointalist works right now. Is Justin in his epic era, or was that just a coincidence that those two works are kind of premiering or being made in tandem with one another?
Justin Peck [00:30:09]:
I don't think of it that way. I think it is a little bit of a coincidence. And when I got here, I was like, oh no, how am I going to do this? But luckily, the influence of this music and these dancers and the place, it feels quite different from the Copeland. And I always love working with big groups. That's something that goes back to honestly, it was a backlash to a lot of the new work I was seeing as a student where every time I would go to New York City Ballet to see a world premiere, it would be like eight dancers on stage or something like that. And then I would see on the same program, like Symphony and Three Movements by Balanchine, I was like, there's so much potential with big groups. I think that's sort of where my interest in it came from. And I love working with big groups and there's just so much yeah, like I said, so much potential with that. But there's also like I think I'll probably take us a little break from that coming up. I think next year I'm just going to do a duet for New York City Ballet for two people, and I'm working on a show called Illinois right now that's premiering up at the Bard Fisher Center. And that's for a cast of twelve. So that's a little bit smaller, a little more intimate, and then a couple of other things here and there. But yeah, I think it's also good to sort of take a little time to rest and get bored and sort of let the thoughts renew as well, right? Yeah.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:31:58]:
How does having to work on several projects simultaneously affect the artistic output? Because it's not like for either Copeland or for this new work that you were able to just, okay, I make the work for three weeks and then we have a tech week and then we boom, boom, boom, you are actually going back and forth between those two projects. And I'm certain that there were other things, obviously, Illinois, you were working on, even if it's on the back burner, what's the juggling process like, and maybe some pros and cons to going back and forth rather than I imagine if you were just there all the time, you'd be driven insane by looking at the same thing every day.
Justin Peck [00:32:41]:
I think you kind of have to because some of these projects require so much preparation, so much time, especially as I'm more interested in making work that's larger scale or more epic in length in the arc of what it is, these things just have longer gestation periods. And even talking about the Copeland, which is like an 80 minutes evening, that was like years of preparation and planning. If I can talk a little bit about the process of making that. I pulled a lot from my experience working on the West Side Story film, particularly in how they organize and schedule and plan for shooting the film. So so much of it is broken down into a very specific kind of schedule that works in a nonlinear way in relation to the story. And so much of it is storyboarded. There are exercises in kind of like how the film will kind of come to life through the camera eventually, so that there's this constant thought process and planning preparation that goes into actually filming the movie. And I think for the Copeland, I embarked upon a similar process where I created a kind of full arc of this piece. It actually incorporates four different scores by Aaron Copeland. But I wanted it to have this sort of seamless feel through the dance that we were creating in relation to that. And so there are dancers who have arcs that start in the first piece and end in the fourth piece. And a lot of that was sort of like dreaming on and structuring out what that would be. And then once we get into the process of working with dancers, it's like, okay, let me zoom into this, like, 32nd Variation for Megan Fairchild that comes about 60% into the film. And now I'm going to jump back to the opening, and now I'm going to go to the finale, and now I'm going to do this duet. And that duet comes in the third act, where we set it up in the first act. But I haven't done that yet. So it's a lot about having the vision for the thing as a whole and then I guess zooming into the specificity of each little moment so that becomes this collage, almost like this puzzle that eventually comes to life. A work like that was very long term in terms of the planning, preparation and then the execution of it. And similar for many of these projects. So some of them I've been working on for years. And sometimes it's a little out. Of our control in terms of when they actually hit that premiere date. So, like this year, for example, I have, like, two or three really big projects that are coming out at the same time, and people probably think, like, well, it's too much, or like, how is Justin doing that? But really, they've all been sort of in various processes for years now, getting to this place, and sometimes it's on and off, and sometimes it's switching from one to the other, where there's, like, very focused sessions for those respective projects. And that's just sort of the nature of how work gets made and how these projects function. And so it's a lot about finding a discipline in the practice and the scheduling and the organization of it all.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:36:51]:
Sure. Well, we hope that all of our listeners in the Houston area will see Houston Ballet in the in Justin and his epic era, as we've now dubbed it, may 25 through June 4. But just before we let you go, we know you have to get to the studios for rehearsal, but just let us know what you hope audiences will take away from this ballet.
Justin Peck [00:37:13]:
I kind of hope that they have a kind of simple, cathartic release from the experience. I think that just as I experienced that from witnessing the Terrell exhibit, I do think that the piece so has some special moments in it, but it's ultimately about the sum of the parts, and I'm hoping that it'll be something greater than the parts themselves. So that's my hope, and it's just to throw it in there at the end. The title of the work is under the Folding Sky, so I'm kind of a nice nod to the Terrell, but also a title that I think well represents what this work will be in terms of the experience on stage.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:38:07]:
Thank you so much, Justin. We wish we could be there with you, and we are sure that all the audience members and dance alike will really just relish this experience. So thank you.
Justin Peck [00:38:16]:
Thanks for having me. Always fun to talk to you.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:38:19]:
Conversations on Dance is part of the Acast creator network. For more information, visit conversations on dancepod. com.