Justin Peck

I really enjoyed watching a ballerina named Denise Dabrowski who used to dance at California Ballet. She was a beautiful ballerina and role model for a lot of young dancers.

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

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

I'm not a very good dancer. My feet don't point far enough; my extension is embarrassing. Dance, for me, has been hard because it's a strive for perfection.

Pressure feels sort of normal to me.

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.

I love seeing New York City Ballet from the fourth ring, just seeing the architecture of how these bodies move from above.

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.

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.

Ballet dancers are among the greatest living athletes.

Balanchine is the number one influence for me. His work was really musically driven. He and Jerome Robbins were the ones who really showed me that dance could be about the inner relation between movement and music. When I was a student first seeing their work, I was like, 'Oh, this is a thing?'

My movement is usually about finding the balance between artistry, athleticism, and musicality. It always originates with a classical basis and expands outwards from that platform.