Tiler Peck's Thrilling Debut as Aurora
The second she appeared, the whole stage came alive. She was light and happy as the 16-year old princess, but not too happy. She never pushed it. She danced with her customary crispness, but also with the assurance and graciousness befitting a girl who is the hope of the kingdom. No, she didn’t balance for an eternity during the Rose Adagio, but her gestures toward her four suitors were so warm that the sequence was entirely engaging.
Her attention to detail was exquisite. The way she finished a pirouette and opened up into arabesque made me gasp. In the vision scene, she called to her prince lovingly with both arms…so inviting. Who could resist? All her movements, even the ones sinking down into plié, were about giving. And she took her time, never rushed, so you could savor that generosity. After the big Aurora’s Wedding pas de deux, and after Prince Désiré’s variation (Gonzalo Garcia was a princely, attentive partner), when she took her place for her variation you could hear a pin drop. In this solo, instead of making little circles with her hands, she pressed the volume of space in front of her with a gathering motion.
Tiler Peck doesn’t have the advantage of being an obvious beauty like, say, Jenifer Ringer. But everything about her—the incline of her head, her focus, her neck and shoulders—projects beauty. At all times she made you hear the nuances in Tschaikovsky’s music and see the beauty of David Mitchell’s scenery of New York City Ballet’s production.
She was so dazzling—but in no way flashy—that I felt that she is bound to become an international star. Stay tuned.
Pictured: Tiler Peck as Princess Aurora. Photo by Paul Kolnik, Courtesy NYCB
