A Ballerina's Entire Routine, from Stage Makeup to the Sugar Plum Fairy Dance

[shoes clacking]

So, makeup turned out beautiful.

Just make sure everything looks very even,

so I always put some,

what do you call this, Grace?

[Grace] That's Mac powder.

Hi, Allure, I'm Tiler Peck.

Get ready with me for my performance

as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker.

[bright elegant music]

This is my 20th year in the company,

so I've pretty much done all of the roles.

So the Sugar Plum Fairy

is like the queen of the land of the sweets,

which is basically what everybody comes to in the Act Two.

So, for typical stage makeup,

we need a lot of foundation.

So we wear a grease.

When we get like our makeup tutorial,

when we very first get into the company,

they call it grease.

So now this is the pancake portion.

It's called Star Blend cake makeup, we call it Pancake.

Says it's pressed powder makeup.

While the mascara is drying,

I typically do my blush.

And then I also put it up here on the hairline

just because with our stage lights,

I wanna make sure that there's a sort of definition

before the hair and the crown and everything start.

Everything for this stage

and the makeup that we do

is just to sort of exaggerate

and make our features as open as possible.

The stage is very big, the audience is huge,

and then we have those harsh stage lights

that we're constantly battling from the audience.

It really helps show our features.

[bright elegant music]

Hi Susie.

Yeah, I'll just do my ponytail and then I'll be up.

So, I just added a little water,

just so I can get the flyaways and everything

really nice and neat.

And now I'm just gonna do my ponytail,

and I always like to do it in a nice line of the profile.

So, we try to go for that.

A little hairspray.

I like for it to be slick, but not so slick,

so I always kind of leave just a little poof,

I like to call it.

Okay, so this is a little secret,

so I'm just kind of pinning the hair up

just to get it out of the way.

But we call this the zipper,

and this is so that there's a really clean line in the back.

So I take these small, almost like invisible hairpins,

and I start at the bottom

and I go from sort of the right side to the left.

And I do that all the way up.

And I always put my head up

so that that gets like the most slack.

Okay, now we go to Susie.

Hi, good, how are you?

The Sugar Plum Fairy,

when she walks on stage, everybody go. [gasps]

It's like magic.

It's supposed to be like that.

Susie knows I like a little lift,

so that's what she did.

Some stuff, but we have to keep it.

Magical.

So, now it's time for the bun,

and I'm pretty good at a French twist,

but when it comes to buns, Susie is the master.

So I like to think of it as like a cinnamon swirl.

You'll see, right?

Yes.

It kind of looks like that.

[Susie] Yes.

The hair is not your basic ballerina bun.

It has to be a little more elaborated.

For Tiler, we keep it very classical,

on the Sugar Plum Fairy, I make it more fuller,

so that is more so like more glamorous

than the other regular bun.

It's only because of the shape of the crown.

The shape of the crown, yeah.

Yeah.

Once we get all the pens sort of in

is to add a hair net.

And that's just for

a little extra safety on stage.

Okay, so now is the crown time.

It's like so beautiful, these crowns.

And I always kind of,

we find the right placement.

Is that good?

And then I sort of hold it here just in the beginning

while Susie pins it,

just to make sure it doesn't move on her.

We use hair pins.

I use like 20.

These are Japanese,

a special hair pin.

They really secure everything.

And what's nice about this crown

is it has green and pink.

And since I'm wearing both of those colors tonight,

it matches both.

I feel like it's always this moment

when the crown goes on,

that you actually feel like, okay,

I'm the Sugar Plumb Fairy and it's gonna happen tonight.

Yeah, you know?

Makeup turned out beautiful.

Make sure everything looks very even.

So I always put some,

what do you call this, Grace?

[Grace] That's Mac powder.

So Tiler usually does her own makeup,

but what we do is we use Mac Studio Fix Powder on her body

to make everything look in sync,

in terms of like her skin tone.

This is called cream blend stick and it's white.

And I like to put just a little white in between

the bottom of the eye line and before the eyeliner.

And that just also helps sort of open it up.

And then sometimes I go back downstairs

and I'll like retouch up the black part.

But this is just so that the eye can be as open as possible.

After I come downstairs,

I always do one last check for eyeliner

just because of the white I added.

And that little zipper that I taught you upstairs,

sometimes if you put your head back,

you can get just a little bit of extra hair.

Well, this role in particular,

was what made me wanna be in the New York City Ballet.

I was an 11-year-old in the audience,

and I said, Daddy, I'm gonna dance on that stage someday.

So the fact that I get to play the Sugar Plum Fairy now

is sorta of still like a pinch me moment.

Can't believe I get to play that role.

[shoes clank]

This is actually the first time I'm wearing this costume.

It's brand new.

Hot off the press.

Hot off the press.

This is Bettina, my dresser.

The Sugar Plum Fairy is a difficult role

and a high pressure part for the artist doing it.

And she does not appear on stage till Act Two

to get into the pink costume,

and then to do a solo with the angels.

As soon as that's over,

she comes back here during the Spanish,

and changes into the Sugar Plum green tutu.

Yeah, I think that feels good.

Does that feel good?

Yeah.

I'm gonna check your jewels.

This is my first look.

I do the solo variation

and then my second look is the green Sugar Plumb tutu.

And that's what I dance with my partner in.

And I have to protect the Sugar Plumb on stage live

'cause there's the sleigh and there's set pieces,

and she goes running in and out.

So that's when we have to be like, ahh.

Yeah.

[light bright music]

I have a special way of doing it,

which is kind of,

I like to say painting the rosin on.

So I just take a paper towel

and I put it on all the spots

that I feel like could be slippery while performing.

And then on the top.

And then I always put a little rosin on the inside as well,

just because I feel like that helps the tights kind of grip.

I guess ways of putting their shoes on,

some people use just paper towels.

I don't like to feel my feet on the floor,

so I use a lot of things.

This is a really fun cast.

Yeah.

It's a cast of,

it's a friend's cast tonight.

Yeah.

Relax.

Yeah.

So see here how we just sort of

sew the ribbons to themselves.

I'm not actually sewing it to my tights,

but I'm just sewing them to one another,

so that they don't ever come out on stage.

I just come over here and I check my shoes in the mirror,

make sure they look nice and neat.

And this is the finished look.

Thanks for joining Allure, see you on stage.

[light orchestral music]