How Humberto Leon and Justin Peck Brought Far-Out Fashion to Modern Ballet
StyleThe secret to the Opening Ceremony co-founder and renowned choreographer’s decade-long collaboration? “It has to feel like hanging out.”By Raymond AngJanuary 31, 2025Erin Baiano, Courtesy of New York City BalletSave this storySaveSave this storySaveJustin Peck and Humberto Leon have been here before.On an unseasonably warm winter afternoon, I settle into a largely empty Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater to watch the dress rehearsal for the pair’s latest ballet Mystic Familiar, their fourth collaboration, which premiered Wednesday evening.Humberto Leon and Justin Peck Erin Baiano, Courtesy of New York City BalletTen years ago—back when Leon was deep into his run as one of the forces behind the era-defining downtown New York brand Opening Ceremony, and the prodigious choreographer Peck was just a year into his tenure as New York City Ballet's resident choreographer—the pair collaborated on a ballet called New Blood, which saw dancers in striking, Leon-designed mod unitards square off in duets set to Steve Reich compositions.Since then, the pair have collaborated on three more ballets, with the second of those—2017's furiously electric The Times Are Racing, which Peck choreographed during Trump’s first presidential campaign—now considered a kind of contemporary classic, staged everywhere from Chicago to Munich.“We've always been in touch,” Leon tells me. “Literally, he'll call me and he'll be like, will you do this? I'm like, yeah, totally. I don't even look at my schedule.”This new ballet sees Peck reuniting the dream team from The Times Are Racing—composer Dan Deacon, lighting designer Brandon Stirling Baker, and Leon—with a new collaborator, the visual artist Eamon Ore-Giron, who did the scenic design and shares Peruvian roots with Leon.“I keep joking,” Peck says. “It’s kind of like the band coming back together and making a sophomore album or something.”Leon's costume designs for Mystic Familiar. Erin Baiano, Courtesy of New York City BalletIf he’s a tad nostalgic, he has reason to be. Last year, Peck celebrated a decade at NYCB and Mystic Familiar marks his 25th ballet for the company. But even those milestones don’t show the full picture of his achievements. Last year, Peck also won a Tony for the Broadway musical Illinoise, the hit Sufjan Stevens musical he directed and co-wrote. And before that, he worked with two of Hollywood’s biggest names on their award-winning films—Steven Spielberg on 2021’s West Side Story and Bradley Cooper on 2023’s Maestro.For his part, Leon has stayed similarly busy. After Opening Ceremony closed its stores in 2020, the ever-dynamic Leon reinvented himself as a restaurateur in Los Angeles, opening the Peruvian-Chinese restaurant Chifa and the Chinese-Salvadoran cafe Arroz & Fun. Then, in 2022, he took on another new challenge: becoming the creative director for the emerging girl group Katseye, which just scored a global hit in the ultra-catchy “Touch.”With all that going on, it’s notable that they’ve both made it a point to keep their collaboration going. “Working with Justin, it’s really interesting because I think all the players are part of the process, and it's kind of a moving organism,” Leon says. “Easily Justin could just say, ‘Here's the dance piece, here's the music. design costumes for this.’ But we're so involved [in the process] that it really makes the piece that much more special.”Dancer KJ Takahashi in a fitting for his Mystic Familiar costumes. Erin Baiano, Courtesy of New York City BalletPeck credits his theater background for this eagerness to collaborate. “It is in the spirit of ballet being the meeting point for all the artistic mediums to come together,” he says. “It is this kind of moving target that we're all adjusting to try and hit.”This latest production emerged from an idea Peck had about loosely building a ballet out from the five elements—air, earth, fire, water, and ether. “It's a great basis to explore dance because dance is so visceral,” he says. From there, Deacon wrote a new piece, “Become a Mountain Suite,” based on his own song “Become a Mountain”—which appears on the album from which the ballet takes its title, Mystic Familiar.Even as the piece was being developed, Peck started sending Leon sections of the dance in progress. “I can envision what Justin was thinking and all the decisions he was making while we were doing this together,” Leon says.Erin Baiano, Courtesy of New York City BalletThe final costumes contain some of the designer’s signature touches—translucent Day Glo layers that reminded me of the Rodarte x Opening Ceremony lookbook, baggy jumpsuits that wouldn’t be out of place of a Control-era Janet Jackson video, usurping audience expectations by putting a soloist in big black shorts and a loose black tank adorned with enough mother of pearl to seem like twinkling stars at dusk. But Leon seems freed to pursue his own flights of fancy too: in one section, for example, heaps of organza function as bolero-like jackets t
Justin Peck and Humberto Leon have been here before.
On an unseasonably warm winter afternoon, I settle into a largely empty Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater to watch the dress rehearsal for the pair’s latest ballet Mystic Familiar, their fourth collaboration, which premiered Wednesday evening.
.jpg)
Ten years ago—back when Leon was deep into his run as one of the forces behind the era-defining downtown New York brand Opening Ceremony, and the prodigious choreographer Peck was just a year into his tenure as New York City Ballet's resident choreographer—the pair collaborated on a ballet called New Blood, which saw dancers in striking, Leon-designed mod unitards square off in duets set to Steve Reich compositions.
Since then, the pair have collaborated on three more ballets, with the second of those—2017's furiously electric The Times Are Racing, which Peck choreographed during Trump’s first presidential campaign—now considered a kind of contemporary classic, staged everywhere from Chicago to Munich.
“We've always been in touch,” Leon tells me. “Literally, he'll call me and he'll be like, will you do this? I'm like, yeah, totally. I don't even look at my schedule.”
This new ballet sees Peck reuniting the dream team from The Times Are Racing—composer Dan Deacon, lighting designer Brandon Stirling Baker, and Leon—with a new collaborator, the visual artist Eamon Ore-Giron, who did the scenic design and shares Peruvian roots with Leon.
“I keep joking,” Peck says. “It’s kind of like the band coming back together and making a sophomore album or something.”
If he’s a tad nostalgic, he has reason to be. Last year, Peck celebrated a decade at NYCB and Mystic Familiar marks his 25th ballet for the company. But even those milestones don’t show the full picture of his achievements. Last year, Peck also won a Tony for the Broadway musical Illinoise, the hit Sufjan Stevens musical he directed and co-wrote. And before that, he worked with two of Hollywood’s biggest names on their award-winning films—Steven Spielberg on 2021’s West Side Story and Bradley Cooper on 2023’s Maestro.
For his part, Leon has stayed similarly busy. After Opening Ceremony closed its stores in 2020, the ever-dynamic Leon reinvented himself as a restaurateur in Los Angeles, opening the Peruvian-Chinese restaurant Chifa and the Chinese-Salvadoran cafe Arroz & Fun. Then, in 2022, he took on another new challenge: becoming the creative director for the emerging girl group Katseye, which just scored a global hit in the ultra-catchy “Touch.”
With all that going on, it’s notable that they’ve both made it a point to keep their collaboration going. “Working with Justin, it’s really interesting because I think all the players are part of the process, and it's kind of a moving organism,” Leon says. “Easily Justin could just say, ‘Here's the dance piece, here's the music. design costumes for this.’ But we're so involved [in the process] that it really makes the piece that much more special.”
Peck credits his theater background for this eagerness to collaborate. “It is in the spirit of ballet being the meeting point for all the artistic mediums to come together,” he says. “It is this kind of moving target that we're all adjusting to try and hit.”
This latest production emerged from an idea Peck had about loosely building a ballet out from the five elements—air, earth, fire, water, and ether. “It's a great basis to explore dance because dance is so visceral,” he says. From there, Deacon wrote a new piece, “Become a Mountain Suite,” based on his own song “Become a Mountain”—which appears on the album from which the ballet takes its title, Mystic Familiar.
Even as the piece was being developed, Peck started sending Leon sections of the dance in progress. “I can envision what Justin was thinking and all the decisions he was making while we were doing this together,” Leon says.
The final costumes contain some of the designer’s signature touches—translucent Day Glo layers that reminded me of the Rodarte x Opening Ceremony lookbook, baggy jumpsuits that wouldn’t be out of place of a Control-era Janet Jackson video, usurping audience expectations by putting a soloist in big black shorts and a loose black tank adorned with enough mother of pearl to seem like twinkling stars at dusk. But Leon seems freed to pursue his own flights of fancy too: in one section, for example, heaps of organza function as bolero-like jackets that, in moments, make the dancers appear like tiny clouds.
“Visually, there's this amazing flow of design, thanks to the work that Humberto's done where it brings us from one element to the next,” says Peck. “This one is a particularly huge, ambitious design—there's probably close to 50 costumes in this ballet and it's a one-act ballet.”
Leon, after all, knows a thing or two about collaboration—in its heyday, Opening Ceremony was revered for its keen eye for culture and tastemaking collaborations, from Yoko Ono to Spike Jonze to Kermit the Frog. “I always say that the best collaborations are when it feels like just friends hanging out together and throwing out ideas,” says Leon. “I really think that our things that we've worked on together, the outcome is really a conversation, and what the audience gets to experience is this kind of beautiful, intimate conversation between friends.”
As I watch the company run through the dress rehearsal, against Ore-Giron’s constantly-shifting, Hilma af Klint-esque backdrop, it's evident that a decade into their run the Leon-Peck connection remains as vital as ever.
“I think it's amazing that these pieces live on in the history of the ballet,” Leon says. “The fact that The Times Are Racing, [all these] years later is kind of like this cool thing that could just keep going? It's so different from fashion. When you work in fashion, it's about seasonality and things being outdated. I think with ballet, there's a beautiful longevity to it, where it really feels like art.”
