Peck as Miss Turnstiles;
ABT Sleeping Beauty

Tiler Peck as Miss Turnstiles

Megan Tiler

NYCB Principal Dancer Tiler Peck will replace Megan Fairchild as Miss Turnstiles in six performances in the Broadway production of On the Town: March 3 at 7pm, March 4 at 2pm and 8pm, March 14 at 2pm and 8pm, and March 15 at 3pm. Tiler is married to Megan’s brother NYCB Principal Dancer Robert Fairchild, who will star in An American Paris on Broadway starting March 13.

 ABT Sleeping Beauty

Interesting article in The LA Times on ABT’s new Sleeping Beauty by Alexei Ratmansky, which premiers Wednesday at Segerstrom Center in Orange County, California.

…McKenzie, ABT’s artistic director since 1992, was looking for a way to make a strong statement to mark this 75th-anniversary year.

“I thought we should get really daring for our anniversary,” he said by phone. “I was trying to identify a ballet for which ABT has had either near-misses or couldn’t really claim as its own and unique. ‘Sleeping Beauty’ came to mind. There was always something imperfect about it. I just wish we could get it right.”

So what will audiences see, and how different will it be from other versions of “Sleeping Beauty”? They will see familiar passages performed with unfamiliar stylistic approach and often, a different attack than they are used to.

“Some of it is very close. But it’s all different in details — timing, some positions,” Ratmansky said. “Technically, it’s very different. Certain steps are done on demi-pointe, not on full pointe. All the pirouettes are in low passé, not high passé. Everything is very clear — the height of the leg, where it’s bent — and all of the angles, all the directions, and front or back. It’s very difficult to do. I just talked to Diana [Vishneva, the opening-night Aurora] before the rehearsal, and she said her muscles are painful — it’s so different and so difficult.”