Pop Is in Its Pointe Era

When ballerina Tiler Peck first got on a call with Olivia Rodrigo’s team, she was overcome with relief. It wasn’t just because she had landed an incredible gig, as a dancer and choreographer in one of Rodrigo’s upcoming music videos; it was also that the gig would handle ballet with care.

“I just remember saying to them, ‘Oh, thank God,’” Peck tells me from her home in New York. “We finally have an opportunity to get something right in the ballet world. To hire real ballet dancers, real ballerinas, is something that’s very important to me.”

Peck, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, has witnessed many instances of models strapping on pointe shoes without training, or of brands hiring non-dancers for their campaigns. But for Rodrigo’s “Stupid Song” music video, Peck was selected to choreograph the number and perform in it alongside fellow NYCB ballerinas India Bradley, Kayla Mak, Kloe Walker, Rommie Tomasini, Grace Scheffel, Kennedy Targosz, and Lauren Collett. The result is gorgeous: Dressed in blush pink leotards, tights, and pointe shoes, the ballerinas dance around Rodrigo in the streets of New York before moshing in the sprinklers in Central Park.

Peck calls it “one of the most fun shoots I’ve ever had. We didn’t want it to be over, and it was over so fast because we had to go back to the [NYCB] to do our rehearsals and show that night.” Filming with Rodrigo and director Mitch Ryan took place from 6 A.M. to 11 A.M., she recalls. Although the production flew by, the video itself leaves a lasting impression with its playful blend of pop music and ballet.

Rodrigo’s “Stupid Song” shoot isn’t the only recent instance of ballet showing up in unexpected pop-culture arenas. On Rosalía’s current tour, the Spanish singer performs in pointe shoes during her opening number. Rising pop star Adéla, a former ballerina who was once in the running to be a member of Katseye, has also incorporated pointe into her stage choreography, including while opening for Demi Lovato’s latest tour. In March, legendary ballerina Misty Copeland briefly returned from retirement to perform at the Oscars in a blues-inspired set with the Sinners cast. And almost every holiday season, footage of chart-topper Tate McRae’s teenage Nutcracker solo resurfaces on the internet.

Of course, ballet and pop music have found themselves intertwined many times before; in the past two decades, in particular, we’ve witnessed Taylor Swift don a tutu for her 2014 “Shake It Off” video, Rihanna slip into black pointe shoes in her 2007 “Umbrella” music video, ballerinas take center stage in Kanye West’s “Runaway” music video, and dancer-influencer Maddy Ziegler and Sia collaborate on multiple occasions. But there’s something different about this moment, especially in the wake of Timothée Chalamet’s infamous claims about the popularity (or lack thereof) of ballet and opera, and as balletcore style continues to flourish. This iteration of balletcore goes beyond adopting the aesthetics into our closets; it’s about respecting the art while embracing its exciting new forms.

Although some ballet enthusiasts and dancers might argue that these performances don’t count as real, technical ballet, Peck nevertheless sees a benefit to ballet’s pop era. “Our audience is maybe a bit more limited…not everybody has the means to come to the New York City Ballet,” she says. “Highlighting ballet in a video [like ‘Stupid Song’] that can reach so many people is also doing ballet such an amazing thing. It’s just helping make it more accessible, which I think is really important.”

Incorporating “highbrow” art forms into pop music is a key focus of Rosalía’s recent Lux album cycle. The record incorporates opera, orchestral arrangements, and classical influences into genre-bending music. And it’s still pop, as Rosalía herself insisted on The New York Times’s Popcast. Similarly, her live concerts incorporate ballet and fine art elements, as well as her signature flamenco background, challenging what pop both sounds and looks like. The shows are choreographed by a trio called (La)Horde: Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, and Arthur Harel, directors of the Ballet National de Marseille.

On top of that, the singer trained for weeks with Tatiana Yerakhavets, a former prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre who now runs her own ballet academy. Peck herself applauded Rosalía’s arabesque form on pointe and wrote her a supportive message. “You can tell the difference between people that were dancers or somebody that just put on a pointe shoe,” Peck tells me.

She felt the same way watching videos of Adéla, who joined the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy at age 14. Adéla later moved to L.A. to pursue music and was featured in the reality competition series The Debut: Dream Academy. Now, as a solo artist, she’s incorporating ballet into her pop persona, performing with a barre onstage and showcasing high développés with her leg nearly touching her face. Of the singer embracing her ballet training, Peck says, “I’m all for it—especially if you have it, you know what I mean?”

If this little moment in music teaches us anything, maybe it’s that the distinctions between “high” and “low” culture are blurring by the hour. Maybe the distinctions shouldn’t even exist at all. Consuming art and music shouldn’t start with labeling one as too stuffy and another as too pedestrian; what really matters is how a performance connects with an audience. And sometimes that takes a pop tempo and a pair of pointe shoes.

Even Peck mixed some of her classical ballet choreography with less traditional moves for “Stupid Song.” “Dancing to a song like this is something that actually was my favorite thing to do when I was growing up,” she says. “It wasn’t ballet and dancing to classical music.” The “Stupid Song” gig was “like a homecoming” for her, “because literally all I’m doing is doing [what I did as a kid], but with pointe shoes.”

Looking back, Peck appreciates that Rodrigo’s video “wasn’t trying too hard. They just let us be us, and they let her just be her.” She hopes that people watching might be inspired to do the same or even uncover a new side of themselves. “Maybe a non-dancer who is a huge Olivia Rodrigo fan watches the music video and maybe they’ve never even thought of dancing as an option and then they’re like, ‘Oh my God, I want to try or be that,’” Peck says. “It can really have a great amount of change [in] somebody’s life.”