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Christopher Wheeldon


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I posted this on Links, but thought it might be a good impetus to a discussion on Wheeldon.

An interview in the Sunday (London) Times with Christopher Wheeldon

After a bruising on Broadway, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon tells our critic why he's glad to be back at the Royal Ballet with a new work

 

Christopher Wheeldon is something of a foot fetishist. A well-turned ankle in a pointe shoe is his idea of heaven. Which is lucky for us balletomanes, since Wheeldon is one of the few choreographers in the world today excited by classical ballet.  

While his European colleagues run amok in soft-shoed philosophising and radical revisionism, Wheeldon carries the torch for classicism. He does it mostly in America, his adopted home, but he’s now back in his native Britain to make a ballet at Covent Garden. And there’s no doubt what his women will be wearing on their feet: pink satin and plenty of shellac.

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I've seen only one ballet by Christopher Wheeldon - "Corybantic Ecstacies" when it was performed by Boston Ballet this season. I was excited and curious to see what the fuss was about. He's very young, but has Peter Martins and the New York press behind him. That kind of support doesn't hurt, but it also sets one up for big expectations. I enjoyed the Bernstein score, a violin serenade that I had not heard before. I find the classical work of Leonard Bernstein pretty interesting for the most part, but difficult to choreograph to. I thought Wheeldon did a pretty good job grasping the music. All in all though, I left the theater a bit let down. I found ithe ballet to be somewhat sophomoric and fussy. The Greek theme was so literal as to be almost comic, and the final bacchanal ran out of steam before the end. While the set design was very simply powerful and theatrical, the costumes were almost silly, especially during Echo and Narcissus, and in the Dionysia finale.

In general I found the dance to be overchoreographed. So many movement ideas were presented that the clarity I find neccesary for classical ballet became obscured. Some of the group partnering sections were difficult to the point that they could rarely be performed in unison. The highlight was the lovely but extended pas de deux, danced by a very attractive and strong principal couple. (Larissa Ponomarenko and Paul Thrussel that evening). Also the mercuric Hermes section was well made and extremely well danced, yet disappointingly brief (kudos to Pollyanna Ribierto and Jose Martin). Nevertheless, I felt like Wheeldon is an an artist in search of a personal style, not completely in command of his craft, and still lacking enough original creative invention to really catch my interest.

After the show I talked to some of the dancers. They explained that "Corybantic Ecstacies" had been restaged by a ballet mistress and that Wheeldon came down later to put his touches on it. After seeing a run through his remarks were something to the effect of "I don't make 'em like that now!" I took that to mean that he felt his work had matured since this early effort. Therefore I am still eager to see more of his work to get a better feel for this young choreographer.

In all fairness I must say that maybe my remarks are a bit of sour grapes. I know choreographers (myself included) whose work I think are on a par with what I saw of Wheeldon, yet they do not get the opportunities or recognition that fall so readily to the latest fair haired boy or girl of NY City Ballet. So, maybe I was looking at this work through a lens that distorts and detracts from work that others find to be genuinely worthwhile. So, my apologies to Christpher Wheeldon, whom I have never met, for being critical of this one work, and for grousing about him having great opportunities while others might not. I look to like, and, like so many others, crave and hunger for excellent experiences when attending the ballet, and for the creative artists who can provide them.

Rick

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Thanks very much for that assessment, Rick, as well as for your honesty. It's very difficult to evaluate peers. Is it sour grapes? Or does one bend the other way, to avoid sour grapes? Or can sour grapes and flawed work exist in the same universe? :D

Other opinions on Wheeldon's choreography?

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Rick,

Being in the same boat, I applaud and admire your candor about it. I'm sure there are people less territorial than I, but I'll confess when talking about a contemporary that I remind myself sometimes of a dog, having to sniff and sniff and defend his turf. I remind myself often that neither our bad nor our good fortune is particularly fair. Can I tell you why I got a Guggenheim instead the umpty-four other qualified choreographers? Nope.

Wheeldon is very young, and comparatively green. I haven't seen the Boston work, but I do know that for Wheeldon, it's a very early piece. Each one of his ballets I've seen tends to make proportionally larger leaps because of that. (And yeah, I'm thinking, "Why is he given the shot at a major commission and someone else - like me, for instance! isn't?" And the answer is because he is a bankable name and from NYCB, and that has clout and sells tickets. That's life.)

In his defense, I think he is very facile, and his craft keeps getting more deft. Polyphonia was a great success at NYCB, I'm a holdout; I found it glib - which is my reservation about the recent work I have seen. I was quite impressed with Mercurial Manoeuvres. Interestingly, after a year of performance of Polyphonia, the dancers had grown so much into the ballet it seemed to talk the ragged edges off of the structure of the work.

I'm sure there are others who will have a different view on this!

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I found his early pieces "exciting" simply because he was someone new (and consistently working) but as an audience member I just leave thinking that was "nice".

Not earth shattering, not vaguely "original" just harmless at the ballet.

I think the NY Press and the NYCB Press Department have pushed him a lot, perhaps too soon.

I have no sour grapes, I just don't buy tickets specifically for his stuff. I was surprised in a recent interview with him that he was so taken back by the Broadway reviews (which weren't very positive). Possibly because he's gotten such nice reviews ballet-wise.

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