Review: Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends

The multi-hyphenate artist redefines collaboration for a new dance era.

WORDS Ninette Paloma

Still life with dancers; a tableau of water-colored bodies suspended on a Santa Barbara stage. The soft key of a reluctant piano sets the dancers in motion, and one by one a series of elegant vignettes begin to take form – growing bolder and taller as the viola, the violin, and the cello join in. Focused and fluid like a vibrant coral reef manipulated only by the whims of water and time, six sprightly dancers consider the beauty and delicacy of the Thousandth Orange with intuitive grace.

UCSB Arts & Lectures chose wisely when they invited multi-hyphenate artist Tiler Peck to drop into town and do what she does best: create a kinetic ecosystem that hums with electric confidence. On October 25, Peck laid bare a curatorial mashup of genres and choreographers in a heart-pounding program titled Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends – an idea born out of an Instagram project during the height of the pandemic.

The individual languages of Alonzo King, Michelle Dorrance, Jillian Meyers, and William Forsythe speak crisply through each commission, with Peck serving as the central force pulling all four pieces together with expert vigor: In King’s Swift Arrow she is all grace and grit in skin of midnight velvet, navigating her way around Roman Mejia like a purring predator; In Time Spell – choreographed by Dorrance, Meyers, Peck, and the dancers themselves – she is making her way down Broadway, taking in the sights and sounds of a symphonic city with aching breadth and unapologetic ferocity; the palate cleanser of the evening, Forsythe’s The Barre Project, Blake Works II, transforms a dancer’s utilitarian warm-up into jolts of radiant composition thanks to stark lines and the musical prowess of James Blake.
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Over the past couple of decades, Peck has spun focused exploration into golden works of movement, direction, writing, and performance – breezing past convention with genuine curiosity. Every sold-out audience she performs for becomes the beneficiary to her insatiable appetite for creation. Here’s hoping she stays hungry for many years to come.