Summer 2025
California Grown, Globally Acclaimed: Tiler Peck's Dance Journey
By Marina Harss
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Despite many years based in New York City, Tiler Peck — the star dancer who will be performing in Festival Napa Valley’s “An Evening of Dance” this summer — is a California girl, as she proudly proclaims to anyone who asks. Peck, whose stellar career at New York City Ballet has led to an even more far-ranging career as a guest performer around the world, and a burgeoning reputation as a choreographer, grew up 300 miles south of Napa, in Bakersfield. It was at her mother’s dance studio that she took her first steps at the barre.
As anyone who has seen her at work can attest, she carries that California sunniness in her, combining it with a fierce drive and total focus on the minutest details of her dancing. She is especially admired for her ability to make every detail of the music visible through her movement. This very special skill makes her performances stay in the audience’s mind long after the curtain falls. Adrian Blake Mitchell, curator of Festival Napa Valley’s 2025 dance program, remarked, “Tiler stands as one of this generation’s defining ballerinas.”
Oddly enough, she has never been to Napa Valley. “I’ve heard about it forever, but I’ve never had the time to go,” says the relentlessly busy ballerina. Now, she’ll be able to experience it from the stage at Charles Krug, in the heart of the vineyards, set against a backdrop of rolling hills. There, in a program that also features Constance Stamatiou from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company and the Cuban trio of Angel, Marcos, and Cesar Ramirez (triplets from Havana who trained at the renowned Cuban National Ballet School), Peck and her partner Roman Mejía will perform Jerome Robbins’s duet Other Dances. “It’s one of my favorite works,” says Mitchell, “and seeing it performed at this level is something I can’t wait to share.”
Other Dances was created in 1976 by Jerome Robbins for the dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova, both of whom had recently defected from the Soviet Union. The Chopin mazurkas for solo piano to which it is set create an atmosphere at once melancholy and intimate. “It’s almost like the audience disappears, and it’s just me, my partner, and the music,” says Peck.
Peck has danced Other Dances for years; in 2018, before her début, she had the chance to work with Baryshnikov himself: “He told me to really sing the steps,” says Peck. More recently she has performed it with Roman Mejía, her frequent partner at New York City Ballet. The two have undeniable stage chemistry, paired with the ability to bring the best out of each other. “With Roman, I finally found someone that I could dance the entire ballet with,” says Peck. She noted that he is as interested in the delicate partnering as he is in dancing his own explosive solos.
Peck and Mejía work well offstage, too. The two became engaged in the fall of 2024 and plan to marry in June of 2025, making their July performance in Napa Valley all the more special. Having a partner with whom she can share her personal and professional life has been a gift, says Peck. “We often look at each other and say, ‘We are so lucky we get to do the ballets we love and travel the world, together!’”
An Evening of Dance
Saturday, July 19, 6:30pm
Festival Napa Valley Stage at Charles Krug, 2800 Main Street, Saint Helena