Christopher Wheeldon

Choreographer

English choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet. For the London company he has choreographed Tryst, DGV: Danse à grande vitesse, Electric Counterpoint, Trespass (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, in collaboration with Alastair Marriott) and Aeternum (Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production), and the full-length ballets Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. He returned in the 2015/16 Season to create a new one-act work, Strapless, for the Company.
Wheeldon was born in Yeovil and trained at The Royal Ballet School. In 1991 he won gold medal at the Prix de Lausanne with a solo of his own creation and that year entered The Royal Ballet, where Kenneth MacMillan encouraged him in his choreographic work. In 1993 Wheeldon joined New York City Ballet, promoted to soloist in 1998. He created his first work for NYCB, Slavonic Dances, in 1997 and became the company’s first Resident Choreographer in 2001. Works for NYCB include Polyphonia (London Critics’ Circle Award and Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production) and The Nightingale and the Rose.
Wheeldon regularly choreographs for leading international companies, including Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Bayerisches Staatsballett. In 2007 he founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and became the first British choreographer to create a new work for the Bolshoi Ballet. In 2012 he collaborated with Marriott on the closing ceremony of the London Olympic Games. His awards include the Tony Award for Best Choreography (An American in Paris). He was made an OBE in 2016. In 2021 the Bayerisches Staatsballett premiered with his version of Cinderella.

(Information as of 2023)