At 14, Tiler Peck Was On The Cusp Of Joining The New York City Ballet

Tiler Peck’s had a busy year: The New York City Ballet principal dancer had a recurring role in Amazon Prime Video comedy-drama Etoile; curated the Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins at The Joyce; and brought her critically acclaimed show, Turn It Out With Tiler Peck & Friends, back to New York City Center. She is also choreographing a second ballet for the NYCB, recently performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and is in the thick of busy Nutcracker season, where she’s performing Sugar Plum on various dates in New York and California. In the midst of it all, the 36-year-old also tied the knot in June with Roman Mejia — a fellow NYCB principal dancer.

“I have to say, we love it so much,” says Peck of the two blending the personal and the professional. “I think the reason it works so well is because we were dance partners for a very long time before we even went out on our first date.”

If performances and a wedding weren’t enough to keep her busy, Peck also recently published a book, XO Ballerina Big Sis, inspired by an Instagram advice series she started when she was recovering from a neck injury in 2019. “I would talk about difficult subjects when I was coming back from my injury, and I was thinking, ‘Gosh, I bet there are so many people that are struggling with these same things — is this ever going to get better? Should I just quit?’” she recalls. “The amount of comments or DMs that I would get, like, ‘Oh, my daughter’s going through this. How can I help her?’ ... And somebody said, ‘I think you have a book here.’”

She hopes the book will help the next generation of dancers, who often find themselves under intense pressure from a young age. “You’re just kind of expected to know everything at age 9 or 8 or whatever, and you get thrown into ballet class. And some kids don’t have ballet parents — I was lucky to have a dance mom, but some don’t,” she says.

The book has also inspired her own reflection as a child dancer, having entered the prestigious School of American Ballet at age 12 and becoming an apprentice with the New York City Ballet at 15. Ahead, she looks back on the year before she joined the NYCB.

At age 14, you were on the cusp of joining the New York City Ballet, and you’d already debuted on Broadway in The Music Man. Take me back to that time and what your life looked like then.

You know, I was a California girl who had just moved to New York City. I had done The Music Man, so I had lived here for a year with my grandmother, but at 14, it was my first time in New York City living in a dormitory, because I was going to the School of American Ballet. That was a big change coming to the Big Apple from Bakersfield, and it really became a little family. I didn’t really think that getting into the company was actually something that could happen, so to get my apprenticeship after my big end-of-the-year performance, I was like, “Is this actually happening?” It was just a dream come true, really.

And dancing at that level requires an enormous amount of discipline. How did you balance that, and also just being a teen and being in New York City for the first time and discovering the city?

It looked a little different, I think, than a normal 14-year-old. I did go to school, but it was called Professional Children’s School, where they really work around difficult schedules. So I would go to my academic class, which is about five blocks from the School of American Ballet, and then I would leave to do my ballet class, and then we would go back. It helped me feel like I could have as normal a childhood as possible while still doing something professional at such a young age.

Were you able to get any downtime or hang out with your friends, or do something on a Friday night?

That was what was really amazing about living in the dorms. Because we were all away from our families, missing home, we really became a family. At 14, I really wasn’t going out much in New York City, and they gave you curfews depending on your age, and you had to sign in and out. So it felt really safe, because being somewhere like New York City was kind of scary to me, coming from more of a suburban place. But we really bonded together, and some people, like Justin Peck [the Broadway choreographer, no relation], were in the school with me. So you practically grow up with these people, and it’s kind of like going to college, but starting much younger.

What movies were you going to? What music were you listening to? What did you do with your friends?

I mean, I was always a Taylor Swift fan. I remember listening to her over and over on repeat when I was in the dorms. We did go to a lot of movies — I’m trying to remember, I think The Princess Diaries might have come out at that time. And funnily enough, I’m thinking of the movie Rat Race — I remember seeing that with my mom on one of her visits and laughing so much in the movie theater.

Did you have any fashion styles that you were always wearing, or any go-to looks? I always look back at that time and say, “Oh, my God, why did I wear that?”

I came to New York City, and I had all these tank tops. I didn’t even own a proper winter jacket, because my “winter” jacket in California was for, like, 50-degree weather. So I remember walking to PCS, my academic school, and feeling like, “I don’t know if I’m actually going to make it here — this is freezing.” So yeah, I don’t think my outfits were quite appropriate.

I went to college in Chicago, and going out on Saturday night in the winter, we’d wear a little dress. We really weren’t dressed for the elements.

No, especially when it’s something like New Year's Eve. We weren’t going to a major party when we were 14, but we went to a little something — and it’s freezing here in New York, and I just wasn’t ready for that. And then you couldn't get a taxi home, so you ended up having to walk, and you were in 30-, 20-degree weather.

Tell me a little bit more about who your inspirations were at that age, and which dancers really inspired you to go into the profession.

I didn’t really grow up thinking I wanted to be a ballerina. I knew I loved dancing, but it wasn’t until I saw the New York City Ballet when I was 11 for Christmas. I remember seeing Darci Kistler, who you could see in the movie version of The Nutcracker, dance Sugar Plum. And then she became one of my teachers when I was at SAB. So to have her teaching me, and remember seeing her do Sugar Plum, and that making me want to be in the New York City Ballet — that was really special.

And when you think back to your 14-year-old self, is there anything you wish you could tell her? Or do you think, when looking back in retrospect, there were aspects of the typical teenage experience that you felt like you didn’t quite have?

It was such an intense period, and you’re spending all that time with a small group of people. So you do become really close and have that same kind of experience as a lot of other teens. And I was lucky that I also got to stay really close with my best friends from California — my best friend from first grade, from Bakersfield, would come up every year and stay in the dorms with me at SAB.

You do feel like you’re making some sacrifices — I always saw my friends going to the prom or my sister going to a formal back in Bakersfield, and it looked a lot different here. But now none of that really matters to me, because it’s so worth it that I get to do what I love every single day. I feel so grateful.

This interview has been edited and condensed.