For me, the most rewarding aspects of being a dance teacher, is getting to see my students improve over time. Although he’s not my student, thereis one special dancer that I’ve been watching develop over the last few years. I first got to know New York City Ballet (NYCB) soloist and newly named Resident Choreographer, Justin Peck, through my work with the Capital Region Dance Alliance.

In 2010, Dance Alliance commissioned Justin Peck to choreograph a piece for an evening of works titled Saratoga Dances. Those pieces were performed during the Saratoga Arts Festival in June 2011. The work Justin created was called the Enormous Room. The piece was presented with three NYCB dancers and has some of the most beautiful movement that I had ever seen in a ballet.

This summer at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), I had the pleasure of seeing Justin’s latest work for NYCB, Everywhere We Go, multiple times. Justin was interviewed prior to  one of the performances by Mary Anne Fantauzzi, Dance Alliance President. Justin got a chance to explain his working process and how he enjoyed creating a more elaborate piece with a larger number of dances.

For Everywhere We Go, Justin commissioned a score written by Sufjan Stevens for a full orchestra. The 40 minute piece includes nine movements that are like a tasting menu. Each exists on its own, but progresses from start to finish.

Justin mentioned that he choreographs based on the structure and melodies of the music. This score is so grand that he decided to use a large cast. With 25 dancers, he was able to create intricate patterns of movement and used all parts of the stage, even the wings. The first night I saw the piece from the balcony and picked up on the movement in the wings.

This was the first time that one of Justin’s ballets has used scenery. Karl Jansen, a Brooklyn sculptor and architect, was commissioned to design the backdrop. I found the kaleidoscope effect of the backdrop to be interesting, but I was so focused on the dance that I often didn’t even see the changes in the backdrop.

Along with his work with Dance Alliance and NYCB, Justin has choreographed several pieces for other important companies, such as Miami City Ballet and the L.A. Dance Project. These works are owned by the companies that commissioned them, so we probably won’t see them performed by NYCB at SPAC. This fall though, you can visit the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City to see the L.A. Dance Project perform his work Murder Ballades.

So far I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of Justin Peck’s work and I look forward to seeing more of him dance and his choreography.