✦ Origins ✦
Justin Peck, then a soloist and resident choreographer at New York City Ballet, created The Times Are Racing in 2017, premiering it at the David H. Koch Theater. It is set to music by Baltimore-based composer and musician Dan Deacon, drawn primarily from his album America, whose driving electronic pulse departs sharply from the orchestral scores typical of NYCB's classical repertory.
Dancers perform much of the piece in sneakers rather than ballet slippers or pointe shoes, a choice that quickly earned it the nickname "the sneaker ballet" and signaled its wider intent — a work about community, youth, and collective energy rather than the courtly conventions of classical ballet, in keeping with Deacon's populist, festival-adjacent score. Peck has spoken of wanting the piece to reflect a sense of collective purpose and civic optimism, drawing loosely on the language of protest and public gathering, an unusually direct engagement with contemporary social themes for a company whose repertory leans heavily toward abstraction or period narrative.
Structure
The ballet is built for a large ensemble in bright, casual costuming, alternating full-cast unison sections with a central pas de deux. Peck's choreography favors sprinting, low grounded runs, and unison group formations over classical adagio, building a sense of collective momentum and urgency that mirrors the score's anthemic energy. The piece closes on an image of massed, forward-facing solidarity rather than a conventional pas de deux finale. Because the cast performs largely in sneakers, the choreography is also able to draw on sharper, flatter footwork and faster directional changes than pointe shoes would allow, giving Peck a broader physical vocabulary to work with even as the piece retains a recognizably balletic sense of line and partnering throughout.
Reception & Legacy
The work drew wide attention on October 12, 2017, when New York City Ballet cast dancers Taylor Stanley and Daniel Applebaum together in its central pas de deux, one of the company's most visible same-sex pairings, generating substantial mainstream press coverage well beyond usual dance criticism. The piece itself was praised for its youthful, socially attuned tone and for showing Peck — already established as one of American ballet's leading young choreographic voices — working confidently outside classical convention while still inside a major ballet company. The pairing and the ballet's broader reception together made the work a frequent point of reference in discussions of representation within major ballet companies, alongside its more straightforward reputation as one of the more purely joyful, community-minded contemporary works in the New York City Ballet repertory. Peck's rapid rise through the company in the years surrounding the work's premiere, from corps de ballet member to resident choreographer and eventually artistic advisor, has made The Times Are Racing a frequently cited touchstone in accounts of how a new generation of choreographic voices found space within one of American ballet's most tradition-bound institutions.
Its sneaker-clad, vernacular energy also connects the piece to choreographers working further outside classical ballet's core vocabulary, including Kyle Abraham, whose own commissions for New York City Ballet brought a related interest in street and social dance vocabulary onto the same stage.
See Also
Read the full profile of choreographer Justin Peck.