Christopher Wheeldon

Biography

Trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he joined New York City Ballet and was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer in July 2001. Since then, Mr. Wheeldon has created and staged productions for many of the world’s major ballet companies.

In 2007, Mr. Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate Artist for Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. Mr. Wheeldon now serves as Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet. As Artistic Associate, Mr. Wheeldon created many works, including the full-length Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale, both of which were co-productions with The National Ballet of Canada.

For the Metropolitan Opera, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (2006) and Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen (2012) as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center Stage (2000) and Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway (2002).

Mr. Wheeldon created a special excerpt for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. In April 2016, he was the Artistic Director for the Fashion Forward exhibition in Paris at La Musee Arts et Decoratif.

In 2014, Mr. Wheeldon directed and choreographed the musical version of An American in Paris, which had productions in Paris, on Broadway, and in London. 2016 was The Joffrey Ballet’s world premiere of The Nutcracker reimagined by Mr. Wheeldon and he directed and choreographed the gala presentation of Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon starring Kelli O’Hara and Patrick Wilson at New York City Center in 2017.

Among Mr. Wheeldon’s awards are a Tony Award for Best Choreography for An American in Paris, an Outer Critics Award for Best Choreography and Direction for An American in Paris, the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, the Dance Magazine Award, multiple London Critics’ Circle Awards, and the Leonard Massine Prize for new choreography. Mr. Wheeldon’s productions of Cinderella and The Winter’s Tale won the Benois de la Danse, and he is an Olivier Award winner for his ballets Aeternum for The Royal Ballet and Polyphonia for Morphoses.

In 2016, Mr. Wheeldon was named an O.B.E. and was made an Honorary Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.