Thursday night’s “extraordinary” affair raised $3.45 million for the company and began even before the curtain rose on a trio of world premieres: honorary gala chair Stevie Nicks made a rare red carpet appearance (her first since the Met Gala) alongside Parker. After effectively shutting down the step-and-repeat—Parker in a balletic, hand-painted custom tulle and ribbon gown by Simone Rocha, and Nicks in a mauve Morgane Le Fay frock and flower crown—the duo joined Matthew Broderick, Nicole Ari Parker, Julia Fox, and Olivia Rodrigo for the night’s performances in David H. Koch Theater.
Opening remarks from New York City Ballet Board Chair Diana Taylor gave way to the world premiere of Alysa Pires’ Auspicy: a regal ensemble performance whose climax—an arresting solo performed by principal dancer Unity Phelan—evoked a phoenix rising. It was a “romantic” image, to hear Dutch fashion designer Rolf Snoeren tell it, one reinforced by Phelan’s elaborately gilded coat and the ensemble’s metallic catsuits from Snoeren and Viktor Horsting’s label Viktor&Rolf.
For all its sheen, the Fall Fashion Gala commission is a deceptively challenging one. Designers accustomed to outfitting the body for the motions of the everyday (even one as spectacular as this) must, with the help of the New York City Ballet costume shop and its director Marc Happel, adapt their thinking and execution to the needs of the company’s elite artist-athletes.
Rocha, who created Parker’s look for the occasion and the costumes for Justin Peck’s Mirror/Sky, met the twin challenge with aplomb. “The physicality of the dancers was so important to me,” the Irish designer told Vogue of her approach to costuming Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia for their pas de deux. “They were so intertwined, they almost moved as one.”
After walking the red carpet together, the principal dancers and married couple swapped black tie for backstage. Avid followers of Justin Peck may have come to expect ebullient, high-octane works from the ballet company’s Tony Award-winning Resident Choreographer, but Mirror/Sky represented a change of pace. Their performance, set to an adaptation of Nicks’ Landslide by Gabriel Kahane and Haley Heynderickx, settled the night’s energy with the gentle soulfulness of Tiler Peck and Mejia’s every break and embrace, their characters’ courtship embodied by the ruffles, rosebuds, and blooms of Rocha’s costuming. “It was the first time I was able to really trust the craft, not only of what I’ve built over the past fifteen-plus years, but also of Tiler and Roman and their performance as dancers,” the choreographer told Vogue. “It has qualities of what’s fleeting in life, so I think it speaks to ballet in this beautiful way.”
