An inventive and dazzling love letter to Ballet itself.
After its sold-out world premiere in New York and a first run at Sadler’s Wells in 2023, Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends returns this March with the same spirit that first sparked it: curiosity, collaboration and an infectious love for dance in all its forms.
Peck, the magnetic principal of New York City Ballet, has long been recognised as one of the most exciting ballerinas of her generation. But this programme proves her choreographic voice is just as compelling. Turn It Out feels less like a traditional ballet bill and more like a creative gathering: dancers, musicians, choreographers and tap artists all sharing the same stage and language.
The evening unfolds as a series of distinct works, each with its own energy but all guided by Peck’s restless creativity.
It opens with The Barre Project, Blake Works II, choreographed by William Forsythe and set to an electronic score by James Blake. The dancers remain anchored to the barre, executing razor-sharp classical movements while Blake’s electronic soundscape hums beneath them. The effect is striking: ballet, usually paired with lush orchestral scores, suddenly feels percussive and almost mechanical. It’s a clever reminder that even the most traditional ballet training can be reimagined.
A shift in mood arrives with Swift Arrow, a duet by contemporary choreographer Alonzo King. Performed by Peck and her husband, Roman Mejia, the piece carries a quiet intimacy that’s hard to ignore. The score, performed live by jazz pianist Jason Moran, fills the theatre with rich, expressive chords. The choreography responds with equal musicality, at times fluid and sensual, at others testing the edges of balance and momentum.
Peck’s own choreography comes to the fore in Thousandth Orange, set to music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. With a string quartet and piano performing live on stage, the connection between dancers and musicians becomes almost seamless. Peck describes the piece as “the orange tree,” and the metaphor lands beautifully. Dancers dressed in warm shades of orange seem to grow outward from a shared centre, forming shifting patterns that feel both organic and precise. Shaw’s score moves between harmony and tension, mirrored in choreography that pulses with colour and musicality.
Then comes the evening’s unexpected highlight: Time Spell.
Created with tap innovator Michelle Dorrance and choreographer Jillian Meyers, the piece becomes a joyful collision of ballet and tap. If ballet often floats above the music, tap here creates it, quite literally. The tap dancers become the rhythmic engine of the work while the ballet dancers answer with dazzling precision on pointe.
The score unfolds through layered vocal improvisations by Aaron Marcellus Sanders and Penelope Wendtlandt. Using looping, their voices gradually build into something almost orchestral. As the music swells, so do the bodies, culminating in lifts that feel almost gravity-defying.
Throughout the evening, Peck herself remains the gravitational centre. Every movement originates deep within the body, every transition executed with breathtaking speed and control. Movements performed in this way make Peck appear as though she is generating the very music itself.
Turn It Out with Tiler began as a daily ballet class Peck streamed on Instagram from her parents’ kitchen during the pandemic, connecting dancers around the world when theatres were dark. That same sense of community still pulses on stage. As Peck herself says, the evening is “a love letter to my craft and to the dancers who inspire me.”
By the end, that love letter is unmistakable. Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends is a vibrant reminder that ballet today is far more than tutus and tiaras. It’s collaborative, inventive and thrillingly alive.
Turn it Out With Tiler Peck & Friends at Sadler’s Wells Theatre finished its run on the 14th of March 2026. Upcoming Sadlers Wells shows can be found at https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/
Written by Lucy Howarth
Ballet has been more than tuttus and tiaras for a long time. William Forsythe upended things with ‘In the Middle Somewhat Elevated’ in 1987, almost 40 years ago, which I saw on it’s first showing in London in February 1992, to a far more ‘out there’ soundtrack and light show by Thom Willems. Sadly Blake Works II draws comparison and fails badly because Peck and Mejia aren’t in the same league as Guillem and Hilaire. The rest of the choreography was insipid and aimless at best, brash and shouting “USA” isn’t enough. It seemed to be done on the cheap. Sitting up front, the sound delay between the live music/tap and the amplified version from the speakers above created a destructive echo. Seemed to us to be a money-making project in dumbing down.