Justin Peck

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I've always liked vintage posters of California beaches.”

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

“My choreography is very classically based.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“To me, dance and ballet are not so accessible.”

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