"Ratmansky has said that he was inspired by the spirit of the recent No Kings protests. 'We don't need kings,' he said of the ballet's message. 'They're just so ridiculous.' The score is Jean Françaix's 'Le Roi Nu,' which was first played at the Paris Opéra, in 1935, with choreography by Serge Lifar."
"Peck says that the heroism he's interested in is that of his dancers-the ways they drive their young bodies to extraordinary extremes against the press of time and physical limitations. He wants to push them further than they've ever gone. For Peck, Beethoven is a bold move, given that he is best known as the self-styled millennial choreographer of slouchy T-shirt-and-sneaker ballets."
"Beethoven had planned to name the symphony for Napoleon Bonaparte, but, after Napoleon declared himself Emperor of the French, in 1804, the composer angrily erased the general's name from the title page. The symphony's atmosphere of heroic struggle has also been tied to Beethoven's realization of his growing deafness."
New York City Ballet presents two new ballets exploring themes of power and resistance. Alexei Ratmansky's 'The Naked King,' based on Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Emperor's New Clothes,' uses Jean Françaix's score to deliver an anti-authoritarian message inspired by recent protests, declaring that kings are unnecessary and ridiculous. Justin Peck's 'The Wind-Up' sets Beethoven's Third Symphony 'Eroica' to dance, focusing on the heroism of dancers pushing their bodies to extraordinary limits. Peck's choice of Beethoven represents a significant departure from his contemporary style, known for modern music and Broadway work, making this classical composition a bold artistic statement.
Read at The New Yorker
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