Dance Documentary

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“I end up living like a monk.”

The Camera Is On: Now Go Create
‘Ballet 422,’ a Dance Documentary by Jody Lee Lipes

By ROBIN POGREBIN JAN. 28, 2015

Justin Peck is not a lonely guy. He has a girlfriend, close colleagues, a loving family. But you wouldn’t necessarily know this from watching him in “Ballet 422,” the documentary that chronicles his third piece of choreography for New York City Ballet from creation to performance. In the film, to be released on Feb. 6, Mr. Peck is so intensely focused, so singular of purpose, that you wonder whether he has anything left for a personal life.

There he is alone in the dance studio, working through a step; alone on the subway platform, heading home to his Upper West Side apartment; alone at his computer, reviewing videotape of the day’s rehearsal. You don’t see him eat or socialize; you rarely even see him sit down.

And while this existence may seem ascetic, it actually turns out to be realistic, Mr. Peck said in a recent interview. When he is working on a new dance, everything else falls away.

“There’s a constant train of thought in my mind — it never feels like there’s a quiet moment, especially when I’m working on new ballet,” said Mr. Peck, 27. “I end up living like a monk.”

The filmmaking of “Ballet 422” is similarly laser-focused. There is no narration or biographical information to flesh out your impressions of this olive-skinned dancer with defined arms and dark eyebrows. You will not learn that Mr. Peck was born in Washington, D.C., and raised north of La Jolla, Calif., or that he moved to New York City to dance at 13. You won’t know that he became an apprentice at City Ballet in 2006, joined the corps in 2007, started choreographing in 2008, became a soloist in 2013 and became resident choreographer in 2014.