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work of his, to be premiered in May, Peck is

again working with American songster/musi-
cian Sufjan Stevens in collaboration with
whom he has already created Year of the Rab-
bit (2012) and Everywhere We Go (2014).
Furthermore, during its Spring Season NYCB
is devoting special programmes to choreog-
raphers Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei
Ratmansky, as well as to Peck himself.

Sarah Lane, Daniil Simkin American Ballet Theatre: Whipped Cream,
c. Alexei Ratmansky (ph. G. Schiavone)
Companies
Ravel at the Opra
In May, the Paris Opra Ballet offers a Maurice
Ravel programme, to be opened by Jerome
Robbins En Sol (the title by which In G Ma-
jor is presented at the Opra), a ballet which
the American choreographer created in 1975
for New York City Ballet to the Piano Con-
certo in G major that Ravel composed follow-
ing a tour of the USA (and which explains the
influence of jazz). It will be followed by La
Valse created by George Balanchine in 1951:
various couples dance (on the edge of a vol-
cano, wrote Ravel) in a ballroom where the
carefree mood is shattered by the apparition
of Death. Bolro, created for the Paris Opra
in 2013 by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien
Jalet (with scenery by visual artist Marina
Abramovic), completes the bill. Later on (in
June and as per an idea of the former director

Whipped Cream (original title: Schlagobers, Sara Mearns, Amar Ramasarin New York City Ballet: The Dreamers, c. Justin Peck
1924), debuted last March in Costa Mesa, Cali- (ph. P. Kolnik)
fornia (where ABT regularly performs) is now
being premiered in New York by ABT. Confec-
tioneries in a Viennese pastry-shop come to
life in this plush ballet in early 19th-century
kitsch taste, making it a cross between the di-
vertissement in The Nutcracker and La Bou-
tique Fantasque. Ratmanskys upcoming work
for NYCB is, on the other hand, an entirely
new creation and one for which he will be once
again using music by fellow countryman Leonid
Desyatnikov to whose score his Russian Sea-
sons ballet was set. During NYCBs current
Spring Season at the Metropolitan, Russian
Seasons is once again being revived, together
with Namouna: A Grand Divertissement, in a
special programme dedicated to Ratmansky.

Justin Peck triplets

After The Dreamers (September 2016) and
The Times Are Racing (January 2017), New
York City Ballets Resident Choreographer
Justin Peck, is producing his third creation for
the companys 2016/2017 Season: a real tour
de force for this young choreographer (31) who
is riding on the crest of a trans-Atlantic wave
and who, following creations at the Paris
Opra (commissioned by Benjamin Millepied)
and for Het Nationale Ballet, Amsterdam, is
now also well-known in Europe. For this new

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