Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Dance roundup: Tony Waag’s celebratory TAP CITY returns to The Joyce, CITY BALLET unveils Tiler Peck’s latest and a Wheeldon premiere

• By drediman
• May 23, 2026
• No Comments

This past week saw a number of notable happenings in the dance world, namely the return of Tony Waag’s celebratory Tap City to The Joyce Theater and a pair of premieres at New York City Ballet. As always, read on for my thoughts.

TAP CITY
The Joyce Theater
Through May 24

This week at The Joyce Theater in Chelsea, you’ll find the landmark 25th anniversary incarnation of of Tony Waag’s New York City Tap Festival, otherwise known as Tap City (RECOMMENDED), a love-fest celebrating the legacy of tap dancing and its reach across generations and styles. For many, the communal occasion is a homecoming of sorts — a chance to collaborate with lifelong colleagues and friends, as well as commemorate tap forebears who have passed down their artistry and craft to subsequent generation(s) of talents (over the course of the program, projected images of these past masters were shown, creating an affecting montage that captured the breadth of the dance form’s wonderfully diverse and uniquely American history). Overall, with the exception of Michelle Dorrance’s sublimely musical and personable solo My Mind Is on Mingus — which was originally created and performed Brenda Bufalino as a tribute to the great jazz musician Charles Mingus and passed down to Dorrance — it all amounted to a warm and fuzzy family affair that opted for familiar nostalgia over exciting innovation. Among the highlights of the two-act program were the exuberant Karen Callaway Williams in Tribute to the Tap City Divas segment, as well as the elegant yet precise soft shoe duet by Caleb Teicher and Nathan Bugh (danced to Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”). Other acts were certainly crowd-pleasing but a touch gimmicky, like the world premiere of Anthony Morigerato and Jessee Robinson’s Endless — which was performed on an elaborately lit rotating platform — and DeWitt Fleming, Jr.’s re-staging of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s iconic stair dance number. The same can be said of Austrian-born Max Pollack’s undeniably entertaining solo version of Steam Heat. Less successful was the inclusion of excerpts from Sole of Duende’s The Kitchen, a piece that’s clearly still a work in progress. Throughout the evening, Waag himself, as always, proved to be a quirky yet lovable host and occasional performer (I don’t think I can unsee his imitation of a camel). Suffice to say, everyone left The Joyce with a smile on their faces.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
David H. Koch Theater
Spring season concludes on May 31

Besides beloved principal Megan Fairchild’s bittersweet retirement tomorrow in Balanchine’s production of Coppélia, New York CityBallet’s spring season has been also notable for unveiling a pair of works over the past week or so — the world premiere of Tiler Peck’s Symphonie Espagnole (RECOMMENDED), as well as the company premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Continuum (RECOMMENDED). In short, Peck’s large scale new work marks a step forward for this superstar principal, whose first significant foray into choreographing for City Ballet (Concerto for Two Pianos in 2024, set to an ebullient Francis Poulenc score) caused a buzzy stir, indicating a potentially significant choreographic voice on the rise. Using a violin concerto score by Édouard Lalo, her latest piece is overtly influenced by the Spanish tradition (the tasteful yet strongly suggestive costumes are by Robert Perdziola), simultaneously leaning in on classical ballet technique to convey the culture’s tension and flair. With a company of 40 dancers at her disposal, Peck excells at moments of musical flourishes — just watch Roman Mejia, and you’ll get what I mean — and I perceived an advancement in her often ingenious sense of patterning and groupings. That being said, repetition and a reliance on synchronized dancing occasionally crept in, and at times the choreography seemed a tad too grand for the relatively intimate violin concerto, especially as the work approaches its inevitable conclusion. Minor quibbles aside, the opening cast more than did the piece justice, dancing with stylishness and expansiveness (I was particularly taken with Kloe Walker’s dynamism; Mira Nadon and Ryan Tomash were ravishing and regal, as usual). Then there’s Wheeldon’s somber Continuum, which he originally choreographed for San Francisco Ballet in 2002. Created for four couples, the abstract and technically imposing neoclassical ballet is a slow but mesmerizing burn set to a distinctively moody/dissonant piano score by György Ligeti (similar to Polyphonia). Juxtaposing angular shapes with the fluidity of classical ballet, Continuum unfolds with austere force that champions architectural brutalism over easy human emotion, resulting in a ballet that feels chilly yet completely palpable. As in Symphonie Espagnole, Nadon and Tomash were particularly magnificent, perfectly conveying the work’s inscrutable demeanor.