See “the ballerina who can stop time” and Lil Buck in Vail for $23 this weekend

The Vail Dance Festival may be of the best reasons you’ll have all summer to visit the mountain town.

The weekend’s main events will feature Tiler Peck, who the New York Times recently lauded as a “time-lord.” Besides world-class ballet talent, the affordable festival includes dance styles as diverse as jook and flamenco.

Anyway, here’s how the New York Times described the NYC ballerina: 

“She stops but doesn’t stop; she lingers and accelerates within a steady beat; she trills back and forth on point, like machine-run needlework in a tiny area of space; or she rushes around the whole stage area like a blithe torrent.”

The event runs on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s $23 for general admission and $60-plus for reserved seatings.

Here’s a good look from last year’s ballet, including Peck dancing at about 1:30. There’s also a bit with a dancer who is kind of stuck in a giant purple sock. That’s dance. (As a reader points out, it’s Martha Graham’s Lamentation.)

And here’s what jook is.