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Interview with Christopher Wheeldon


Alexandra

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I'm so glad the full interview has been published. It was a great read in the print form, and the full version is even richer.

Wheeldon gives very thoughtful answers to very thoughtful questions, not just the usual ones.

As a Jersey girl and one-time commuter to NYC from NJ and Long Island (before I moved to Manhattan), I particularly appreciated this Q&A:

DanceView: I’ve read that you just moved from Manhattan across the river to Brooklyn. Can you tell me about that?

Wheeldon: Well I’ve moved to Williamsburg and, funnily enough, I feel much more in touch with Manhattan now that I live in Brooklyn. There is something about being able to exhale when you get off the subway in a neighborhood. Manhattan has just become one big melting pot. Everyone always uses that analogy, but even the East Village now feels less like a real neighborhood and more gentrified, and a lot of people who crave that neighborhood living have moved to Brooklyn. When I get out at my subway stop at Graham Avenue, I feel like I’m in a small town; I walk down my block and there are people in the spring and summer who sit out on their stoops and have lived there for many years and they probably look at me and think, “Oh, here comes the yuppie,” but it’s reassuring to feel like you’re surrounded by a community. Coming from a small town in England I appreciate that feeling. And then I get this great sense of excitement coming back into downtown New York. Ever since I’ve lived here – and I’ve lived here for sixteen years – every time I make the drive from JFK [airport] to the Midtown tunnel, when I first see the skyline of Manhattan, I get this great sense of excitement coming into the city. And now I have that every morning. I get on the L train with all the hipsters and come into Union Square and suddenly I’m projected out into this buzz. If you live in Manhattan you expect it; you walk out of your front door and are in the middle of it already, but something about traveling in and the adrenaline rush of coming up out of the subway and walking over to the office: I love that feeling. It makes the day exciting and starts it on a high energy. It’s been a good move for me.

Many thanks, Michael!

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