Dancing into The New York Times' Top 10

Two productions from Montclair State’s Peak Performances series landed coveted spots on New York Times’ chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay’s year-end list of the 10 best dance performances of the year.

Macaulay chose the Peak Performances productions of Unfinished Business and glacier as No. 1 and No. 4 respectively. “When seen at Peak Performances at Montclair State University in New Jersey last December, this struck me as the greatest dance duet created this century by anyone except Merce Cunningham,” he wrote about Unfinished Business.

“To have Richard Alston’s Unfinished Business picked as the absolute No. 1 dance work of the year, and for that dance work to contain the best dance duet of the century is heart stopping,” says Executive Director for Arts and Cultural Programming Jedediah Wheeler.

Macaulay’s No. 4 pick, Liz Gerring’s glacier, was commissioned by Peak Performances, and the work had its world premiere right on campus at the Kasser Theater. “Peak Performances has a history of bringing world-class artists to our campus,” says Wheeler. “To read that Alastair Macaulay was inspired by two of those artists in one season is humbling.”