alice's adventures in wonderland - The National Ballet of Canada

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ChRISTOphER WhEELDON
Choreographer
Christopher Wheeldon was born in Yeovil, Somerset, and began his ballet training
when he was eight years old. He began studying at The Royal Ballet School at the
age of 11. He joined The Royal Ballet in 1991 and won the Gold Medal at the Prix de
Lausanne competition. In 1993, he was invited to become a member of New York City
Ballet, where he was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He began choreographing for NYCB
with Slavonic Dances for the 1997 Diamond Project; his Scènes de Ballet, a collaboration
with artist Ian Falconer, was created for the School of American Ballet’s 1999 Workshop
Performances and NYCB’s 50th anniversary season.
After creating Mercurial Manoeuvers for NYCB’s spring 2000 Diamond Project, Wheeldon
retired from dancing to concentrate on his choreographic work. In the 2000/01 season, he
served as NYCB’s first-ever Artist in Residence, creating two ballets: Polyphonia, set to piano
music by György Ligeti, and Variations Sérieuses, set to music by Felix Mendelssohn. In July
2001 he was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer. Since then he has choreographed
at least one ballet a year for New York City Ballet, including Morphoses and Carousel
(A Dance) (2002), Carnival of the Animals and Liturgy (2003), After the Rain and An American
in Paris (2005), Klavier (2006) and The Nightingale and the Rose (2007).
Wheeldon has also been in demand with other leading companies and has created
such notable works as Continuum for San Francisco Ballet, Tryst and DGV: Danse à
grande vitesse and Electric Counterpoint for The Royal Ballet, a full-length Swan Lake for
Pennsylvania Ballet (2004) and Misericors for the Bol’shoy Ballet (2007). Outside the ballet
world, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for the Metropolitan Opera’s production
of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (2006), as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center
Stage (2000) and a Broadway version of Sweet Smell of Success (2002).
Throughout his career, Wheeldon has been interested in working with other artists to
provoke new dance directions. Among the composers who have written scores for him are
James MacMillan, Bright Sheng and Michael Nyman. He has also worked with such artists
as Ian Falconer, James Buckhouse and Jean Marc Puissant; designers Adrianne Lobel and
Narciso Rodriguez; the author and actor John Lithgow and director Nicholas Hytner.
In 2007, Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company with the goal of
introducing a spirit of innovation to classical ballet by fostering collaboration among
choreographers, dancers, visual artists, designers, composers, and others who can bring
new life and perspective to the art form. Morphoses was launched at the Vail International
Dance Festival in August of that year and performed at Sadler’s Wells in London in
September and New York City Center in October. For the inaugural season, Wheeldon
choreographed two new works: Fools’ Paradise and Prokofiev pas de deux.
In 2009 Wheeldon worked with Richard Eyre on a production of the opera Carmen at
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. His new version of The Sleeping Beauty had
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