Tiler Peck gets into Vanity Fair (and engaged)

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in LA Observed in 2012, by Iris Schneider

Tiler Peck is the New York City Ballet principal dancer who Judy Graeme and Iris Schneider followed for LA Observed last year when she was home to teach wide-eyed girls at her former dance school in Santa Monica. See Ballet star Tiler Peck is a devoted California girl. "The 12 to 16-year-old advanced students...look at her with silent awe," the Native Intelligence post said. "Most of the girls are too shy to approach her, but they are clearly eager to soak up any wisdom she has to offer. She has made it to where they dream of being."

In this month's Vanity Fair, Peck and her fiancee, NYCB principal dancer Robert Fairchild, made it somewhere else the young Westside dancers might dream of being. They are photographed by Bruce Weber and featured in a spotlight page titled "A Choreographed Romance."

These New York City Ballet principals constantly redefine what it means to be dancers today, whether performing at Lincoln Center or on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars"...

Peck is the most musical dancer of our time. Daring, beautiful, and high-spirited, she has seemingly limitless range...Like Peck, [Fairchild] grabs your attention and won't let go....The sky opens when they dance.

Since the LA Observed story in July 2012 — and Peck's return in December to dance the Nutcracker in Thousand Oaks — she danced on the Kennedy Center Honors tribute to ballet dancer Natalia Makarova. That was the TV program where Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart and a background band and choir brought down the house with an astounding rendition of "Stairway to Heaven" in tribute to Led Zeppelin.

Peck and Fairchild have recently made news off the boards as well. He proposed to her in Paris in the spring. She accepted.

Peck instructing students at the Westside School for Ballet last summer, left, and stretching before "The Nutcracker" in December with Joan Boada.

Photos by Iris Schneider