Turn It Out With Tiler Peck & Friends Review
October 17, 2025 | New York City Center – New York, NY, USA
There are achievers and there are super achievers. Then there’s prima ballerina Tiler Peck, who crushes the whole scale. She is surpassing her Principal status at New York City Ballet and is now building her own empire.
One young fan even calls her the “Taylor Swift of Ballet”, and I think that says it all.
At the peak of the pandemic, Peck launched the #TurnItOutWithTiler Instagram classes that helped thousands of dancers continue with their ballet training at home during the lockdown.
Since then, she debuted on Broadway and is appearing on TV shows and documentaries, choreographing world premieres, writing books, designing leotards, advising dance organizations, getting married again, and evolving into a branded ballerina extraordinaire!
And it looks like – at least from the outside – she’s not going to stop here.
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Turn It Out With Tiler Peck & Friends Review
As the curator of the program Turn It Out With Tiler Peck & Friends at New York City Center, together with her stellar retinue, Peck puts on a show that not only inspires but also proclaims how she is setting a new standard in the dance world.
Besides wishing they added new works to this rerun of the March 2022 performance and a few minor quibbles, overall the show was a crowd-pleaser, and definitely one of the better performances I've seen lately at City Center.
The quadruple-bill begins, catapulting Peck into a stunning stance next to a barre midstage, hair sleeked back in a French twist, baring her legs in a silvery-blue leotard in William Forsythe’s The Barre Project, Blake Works II (music by James Blake).
The theatre is ultra quiet, but as soon as she starts dancing, the audience bursts into immediate fandom. Forsythe’s choreography is supersonic to such an extent that not even the most caffeinated viewer can soak it all in.
He is known for creating a 360-degree effect by changing the movers’ directions throughout a dance, undoubtedly an arduous challenge for the dancers. The only moment of rest in Barre was the video projection, inserted for the dancers to quickly change into their next act.
You can see Peck’s leg muscles at work during the execution of the circular phrases, hitting every move with the finest precision – sustaining a moment in the music by drawing up a foot in a slow coupé, then cutting fastidiously to other maneuvers in the blink of an eye, almost like a rubber band repeatedly snapping itself in the air.
She isn’t intimidated by the fast choreographic demands; instead, she prefers it! She intuitively knows how to cleverly attack every move to match the music so nothing is a blur.
And because her dancing is so good, she can inspire everyone around her (in this piece, Jeffrey Cirio, Lex Ishimoto and her husband Roman Mejia) to also bring out their A-game.
It is also fascinating to analyze how Peck’s Balanchine training (and her competition dancing background) manifest in all her performances, especially in a Forsythe piece. She dances similarly as she does in Theme and Variations or Donizetti Variations, the only difference being that she moves with a greater abandon in the absence of her pointe shoes.
Later during a pas de deux with her husband in a red sultry ballroom number, there is a really cute moment – he offers his hand but she delays in taking it. Cirio reenters, trying to outdance the newlyweds with his virtuosic technique (maybe giving a nod to Balanchine’s Agon), then Peck throws herself into her signature chaîné turns that torpedo before the finish.
The quartet all return to mirror each other’s moves side by side in their lunges, sending the audience into a standing ovation.
We know a dance will be good when we hear the audience clap as soon the curtain opens (think Mr. B’s Jewels).
After intermission, my favorite piece of the night, titled Thousandth Orange and choreographed by Peck, definitely deserved the immediate applause.
A sextet posing artfully midstage, their costumes by Harriet Jung & Reid Bartelme, recall Merce Cunningham’s Beach Birds unitards but in pastels.
The plush choreography evokes textures of colorful taffy being stretched or delicious rainbow sorbet melting; it is a dance so aesthetically exquisite that it can just as well belong at MoMA.
Three couples float through space to the sounds of a live string quartet, performing an array of balletic lifts. A particular one reminds me of Balanchine’s Concerto Barroco when NYCB Principal Chun Wai Chan sends the impossible-to-miss Mira Nadon into the air in a splendid arabesque.
As the classical music ebbs and flows from dissonance to harmony, Nadon commands more and more of my attention, even while just standing in the back waiting in her creamsicle-colored leggings.
Also, one of NYCB’s newest Soloists, India Bradley, punctures the space with her developpés on pointe, and corps members Quinn Starner, Christopher Grant and Ryan Tomash, all rise to the occasion dancing Peck’s choreography.
Near the end, Nadon entwines herself back into the group then breaks free for a final reach towards Chan, accompanied by the sounds of a pizzicato-ing violin. The sextet braids through each other and finishes how the dance began; not the most original ending, but an effective one.
The next piece on the program features the husband-wife team in Alonzo King’s Swift Arrow, a contemporary pas de deux with a live pianist upstage.
Peck in a blue velvet leotard (by the way, a little too barelegged throughout the night for me) and pointe shoes compliments her man in grey velvet booty shorts, akin to an Abercrombie model, as they take turns performing exceptional solos while the other watches.
To impress the audience even further, at one point, Peck catches a leg hold in midair during a promenade, the repeated fallings and catchings ultimately leading to Mejia pressing her up into a fearless diagonal lift.
When the couple drifts into a graceful promenade, I realize it is the moment captured on a bus advertisement I saw a few weeks ago on my way to work.
Mejia lifts Peck up in the shape of an “X”, drags her from side to side, and places her back on pointe. Then she vulnerably leans into him, the lights dim, and the crowd erupts into an undying rave.
The final dance, Time Spell, choreographed by Michelle Dorrance, Jillian Meyers and Peck (and sprinkled with improv by the other dancers) is a full-on fusion of ballet, contemporary, tap, and breakdancing. Even the two vocalists in the cast join in the celebratory dance extravaganza, dancing and ringing in all the tricks, bells and whistles, hyping up the crowd as fireworks do.
Tapping sounds ablaze behind a rising curtain revealing Dorrance upstage dancing away in a white dress shirt under the pool of a spotlight.
Vocalists standing on a riser upstage are humming an African hymn when ten dancers slowly walk on in bluish lighting, a few of them suddenly strutting around as if the stage had became a catwalk.
Amongst them, Meyers, in her black socks doing contemporary moves is a standout, her red hair adding to the visual impact.
The ensemble ripples their backs through two diagonal lines as the excitement continues to build. Peck finally appears in a white boyfriend shirt and pointe shoes, dancing to the lyric
“Fill yourself up… no need to hide…”
She slides on pointe next to Ishimoto, then spins off the stage passing the dance floor on to the tap dancers as they pull out all the stops!
Lately on her Instagram account, Peck has been creating many pre-show dressing room Reels with her posse. As the four NYCB ballerinas return to the Time Spell stage to perform a sexy little quartet in white leotards, I wondered if maybe Peck actually choreographed this section in that dressing room too.
The only disconnect was having Meyers (for me, the runner up for best dancer in the show) linger in the background like the fifth wheel.
Bradley, in a deep amethyst leotard, enters alone holding out her finger to shhh the audience before her turn to shine. She parades around the stage like the elegant supermodel Iman, showing off her flexible athleticism on pointe, then easily slides down to a split and ends her dance with a tilt to the sky.
Another memorable moment is when Peck tangos on pointe with her junior NYCB colleague Starner, who joined the company as a corps de ballet dancer in 2022 and is often featured in Peck’s dressing room Reels.
The most iconic moment of the night was when Peck and Dorrance met for a dance-off, blending Peck’s pointework with Dorrance’s electrifying taps.
I’m so glad the two divas joined forces to cement their camaraderie in dance history.
Time Spell ends with Bradley leaping in, Chan breakdancing, a ballerina being tossed into the air, and the brightly lit stage filled with a group of diverse dancers churning out a unison phrase, then jamming out their personal bests as the lights blacken. There is no doubt that they leave the audience wanting more.
Tiler Peck is redefining what it means to be an All-American principal dancer.
She exemplifies how to be someone who is not only good at ballet but also in other dance styles.
She is an entrepreneurial spirit who can brand herself in creative ways.
She knows how to savvily loop the right people into her dance empire.
She is able to brainstorm ambitious showcases to wow audiences.
She can collaterally improve others’ dancing just by her mere presence.
And she can inspire her community with her versatile talents while doing it all with a smile.
Tiler Peck will always be more.
Featured Photo of New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck in William Forsythe’s The Barre Project, Blake Works II. Photo by Christopher Duggan, courtesy of New York City Center.
