Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins – A Feast for the Eyes and Music for the Soul

What can be said about a festival of Jerome Robbins’s ballets, spectacularly danced with supreme elegance by principal dancers from leading companies in New York, Paris, and San Francisco, and accompanied by superbly sensitive and artistic musicians? It was delightful, and nothing less than spectacular!

Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) was one of the most prolific, influential, and awarded American choreographers of the 20^th Century. His work extended from Broadway to Lincoln Center, and is performed all over the world. And who better to curate this festival than Tiler Peck, one of America’s most versatile prima ballerinas, who grew up in the New York City Ballet (NYCB) under George Balanchine, and learned Robbins’s choreographies directly from Robbins himself?

Peck originally curated a seven-performance tribute to Robbins for the Joyce Theater in New York in August, 2025, at the invitation of the Jerome Robbins Trust. For the Santa Barbara performance, she programmed two nights, March 3-4, at the Granada Theater.

Peck’s dream was to bring together dancers from different companies to perform a varied program of Robbins’s works that included duets and trios, and ended with a group piece each night. She brought musicians from the NYCB Orchestra, who were joined by a string quartet from the Santa Barbara Symphony.

When she curated the original program for the Joyce, the Robbins Trust asked Peck if she would dance A Suite of Dances, a solo which Robbins originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov. Peck was the first female to dance that role, which she performed for the first time at the Joyce festival in 2025, and performed in Santa Barbara the first night.  “I was excited and scared,” she said of her reaction when she was first asked to perform this piece. Peck was accompanied on stage by cellist Hannah Holman from the NYCB Orchestra, playing Bach’s Cello Suites. 

Robbins began his career on Broadway, and is perhaps best known for his choreographies for West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. He created his first ballet, Fancy Free, about three sailors on shore leave in New York, for American Ballet Theater in 1944, with music by Leonard Bernstein. 

The Santa Barbara Robbins Festival did not include any of his Broadway choreographies, but featured ballets by Robbins to an assortment of classical music for piano, cello, clarinet, and string quartet, by Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and of course the luscious waltzes and mazurkas of Chopin. Peck remarked on his tremendous range of works, “coming from the Broadway world as a storyteller.” She found it interesting that “the same person who choreographed West Side Story could create Dances at a Gathering.” 

In an interview the great Danish dancer Peter Martins of NYCB fame (father of Nilas Martins, Artistic Associate of State Street Ballet) discussed how he dreamed of emigrating to America because of West Side Story, and finally convinced Robbins to create West Side Story Suite for NYCB.

Tuesday night’s program began with Four Bagatelles, a pas de deux set to music by Beethoven. Peck noted that this piece is not done very often at NYCB, so she wanted it to be on this program. Peck danced the solo A Suite of Dances on Tuesday, and the program closed with Robbins’s iconic Dances at a Gathering, set to 18 of Chopin’s waltzes, mazurkas, and études for piano.

Wednesday night’s program began with Rondo, a classical duet danced by Mira Nadon and Indiana Woodward, principal dancers with NYCB, set to Mozart’s Rondo in A Minor, and played by pianist Elaine Chelton, of the NYCB Orchestra.  Concertino, a trio with a more modern flare, danced by Taylor Stanley (principal), Jules Mabie, and Dominika Afanesenkov (soloists) with NYCB, followed. The Stravinsky music was played by the String Quartet of the Santa Barbara Symphony, with a clarinet solo by Daniel Mui of the NYCB Orchestra.

Closing the first half was Other Dances, set to some of Chopin’s familiar Waltzes and Mazurkas, played by Elaine Chelton. Peck said of Other Dances, “It’s probably one of my favorite Jerome Robbins dances to do. It’s a pas de deux that I’ve done now for many years, but every time it’s different, and I find new things that I love about it.” Originally choreographed for the legendary dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova, Peck danced this work with her husband, NYCB principal dancer Roman Mejia.

In the Night filled the second half of Wednesday’s program.  The audience gasped as the curtain rose, revealing a night sky with tiny star-lights in swirling patterns, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”  After he created Dances at a Gathering, Robbins reportedly wanted to do more with Chopin’s music, so he created In the Night set to four of Chopin’s nocturnes. Whereas Dances explores the interactions between five couples “just being themselves,” In the Night explores three contrasting aspects of romantic love, from innocent to flirtatious to petulant, under the cover of night. Danced by three couples, all principals from the Paris Opera Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and NYCB, this breathtaking finale brought Wednesday’s audience to their feet in a standing ovation. 

There is such deep love for Robbins in the ballet world – not just for his genius choreographies, but for the way he brought out the best in the dancers whose lives he touched. In an interview Christopher D’amboise, son of the legendary Jacques D’amboise (of NYCB), remembers what it was like to be taught by Robbins:  “I always feel a sense of missing that going over and over again until you get it exactly right — not almost right, or not right once, but exactly right every time. I miss that standard in our lives.” 

More of Robbins’ incredible choreography is coming to Santa Barbara soon, when the superstars of State Street Ballet perform his Interplay on March 21-22 at the Lobero Theater as part of SSB’s family-friendly program Recess.