Justin Peck

I've always felt that Balanchine is my ultimate teacher. I learn the most from observing his work and also dancing in it.

It's expensive to get studio space and dancers. My whole first three years, I was sneaking around in the studios and getting kicked out of them. It was kind of depressing.

My movement is usually about finding the balance between artistry, athleticism, and musicality. It always originates with a classical basis and expands outwards from that platform.

There's something refreshing about going to work with a different group of dancers. There are different ways of moving, different ways in which the institution functions. There's a contrast from place to place, so the variety and the experience of working in a different place feeds me.

I always feel that the mark of a good ballet is that when you see it more than once, you get more out of it.

There's an innate feeling when I choreograph in juxtaposition to how I feel as a dancer. When I choreograph, I never really look into the mirror. But as dancers, we always check ourselves in the mirror. I do feel that when I choreograph, I am making a dance on my own body. Much of it is my own response to the music.

There is something about Dior that reminds me of New York City Ballet. They both have a classic, glamorous basis but are trying to evolve the arts in new and innovative ways.

There is something very cyclical about the way fashion designers work. They work and work and work, the collection is finally shown, and after those 15 minutes, they must start over from the beginning. This is not unlike the way I work creating new dances.

My intention is to make sure that the new work being created for the ballet world is relevant.

I think ballet has a bad reputation of being stuffy and depleted.

It's very difficult to switch back and forth between running rehearsals and then stepping in to dance in rehearsals as a dancer. Just to switch hats in an instant can be a little bit jarring, mostly physically, on the body.

When I'm making a new ballet, I usually read through the score a little bit, and then I have to go back and translate or transcribe all the counts for dancers because the way that you hear it is completely different from the way the musicians read and play it.

I've always liked vintage posters of California beaches.

I'm really interested in working with groups. It's a very simple thing for me, and if I'm given the option to work with two people or 10 or 20 people, I'm going to take 10 or 20. I just think there's so much more I can do with that.

It's amazing what a resource modern technology is now for making ballets, and I film my rehearsals almost every day.

My philosophy on choreography is that the making of a ballet is a team effort, and we're in this together. It's not me hammering on them. It's more about how we can elevate this piece collectively to something great.

My grandfather James Peck was a civil rights activist.

I'm always interested in linking dance to mundane behavior that everyone can relate to.

When I'm in sneakers, it changes my body carriage. I feel more in my own skin.

The reason I started dancing in the first place was my dad took me to see 'Bring In 'da Noise, Bring In 'da Funk' when I was 9.

Balanchine is the number one influence for me. His work was really musically driven. He and Jerome Robbins were the ones who really showed me that dance could be about the inner relation between movement and music. When I was a student first seeing their work, I was like, 'Oh, this is a thing?'

I think it's interesting for people to be exposed to ballet in areas they wouldn't necessarily expect to see it.

I grew up going on vacations with my family to New York every summer, and it's something that I always looked forward to. They'd take me to theater and shows and interesting restaurants, so I was genuinely really excited to move there.

I really enjoyed watching a ballerina named Denise Dabrowski who used to dance at California Ballet. She was a beautiful ballerina and role model for a lot of young dancers.

Ballet is a classically based art form, so it comes with a certain set of rules, at least to start with; then it's about how far you want to push from there.

I feel like there is a different, new energy when I collaborate with a living artist, whether it be a composer, designer, lighting designer. I love that process.

There needs to be more encouragement and support for women - at an impressionable age - to explore that choreographic side of their brains.

For me, the choreography always comes from the music.

I think ballet is pretty open about what music is used, actually.

I've always thought of the process of creating ballets as being this kind of team effort. It's not like being a painter, where you have your paint, and you have canvas, and you just go at it. I'm working with these living, breathing, functioning human beings, and they have their own thoughts and ideas about what works well movement-wise.

I try and create choreography that's in conversation with the music that the audience is hearing.

To me, dance and ballet are not so accessible.

It's probably what I'm most interested in as a choreographer: how I can alter and shift and develop the structure of a piece and of the space.

It's time for there to be roles in the ballet where two men can fall in love, and a woman can lead a company of 20 dancers that include both men and women.

The future of ballet is really in the hands of the creators, so if it's something that interests them to push the envelope with gender roles, then I think it will change. But if that's not of interest to a dance-maker, if their interest is to sort of preserve the way things have been done for the past 200 years, then nothing is going to change.

There is a clearing for new creative thought in choreography. I don't feel intimidated; there is a lot I can do that is new or innovative or different.

I'm trying to create ballets that I would enjoy seeing.

My choreography is very classically based.

Ballet dancers are among the greatest living athletes.

Chicago is amazing.

It's nice to have the support and infrastructure to do what I want creatively. That's kind of a rare thing to find.

Pressure feels sort of normal to me.

George Balanchine is my role model because his work is so varied. You can see two ballets of his and not even realize that they are by the same choreographer.

I like graceful and elegant partnering that gives an illusion of ease instead of emphasizing difficulty. I don't want to make something 'contemporary' or 'trendy,' because ballet doesn't progress on one track: it can branch out in many directions, and as Balanchine showed, there's always room for pure classicism and more subtle alterations of it.

When I saw 'Hamilton,' there was so much information so fast, I had to keep up with it. I find that quality in art exhilarating.

American ballet... is ultimately an evolutionary art form, requiring many voices to creatively carry forward.

What's always interested me the most about ballet is it's this great opportunity for many different artistic mediums to come together to create a cohesive experience.

Balanchine was just able to strike the balance between literal narrative and abstract dance.

I never intended to dance in my own work, but we did what had to be done.

I would love to work with Joanna Newsom on a ballet. I think that would be amazing. She has a gift for orchestrating and composing, and I think she would be really engaging to work with.