In the local dance world, there are few things rarer or more anticipated than a West Coast visit by the New York City Ballet. This weekend, principal Tiler Peck is bringing out ten of her City Ballet colleagues for her three BalletNOW programs at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.*

Joining Peck and company are four of their Lincoln Center neighbors, American Ballet Theatre principals Isabella Boylston, Marcelo Gomes, Cory Stearns, and James Whiteside. From Florida, Jeanette Delgado and Kleber Rebello are repping Miami City Ballet, and from Europe, Peck is importing Lauren Cuthbertson and Reece Clarke from the Royal Ballet, and Marc Moreau from the Paris Opera Ballet.

It’s not all ballet, either. From the world of tap, Michelle Dorrance will be joined by her dancer Byron Tittle in Friday night’s opening number 1-2-3-4-5-6. Virgil “Lil O” Gadson (So You Think You Can Dance) also performs in the Dorrance piece, and the one-and-only Bill Irwin will dance with Peck on Saturday night.

Works by George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, and Justin Peck will be danced in all three performances, and Jerome Robbins’ Fancy Free will close out the show on opening night and the Sunday matinee. A live orchestra will perform from the pit, conducted by Grant Gershon.

BALLET NOW, Friday and Saturday night, July 28 and 29, at 7:30 pm. Sunday afternoon, July 30, at 2 pm.

DOROTHY CHANDLER PAVILION, Music Center, downtown Los Angeles.

musiccenter.org/balletnow

musiccenter.org/globalassets/2017pac/docs/balletnow2017/index.html#9

*New York City Ballet dancers include principals Taylor Stanley and Daniel Ulbricht, soloists Lauren King, Indiana Woodward, and Zachary Catazaro, and corps de ballet members Preston Chamblee, Harrison Coll, Rachel Hutsell, Claire Kretzschmar, and Lars Nelson.

From top: Marc Moreau, photograph by Julien Benhamou. Byron Tittle, image credit Dorrance Dance. Tiler Peck, image credit Dance at the Music Center.