Christopher Wheeldon
Wheeldon Triple Bill, Royal BalletSaturday, 13 February 2016![]() Christopher Wheeldon's new ballet Strapless scores a first on a number of counts. It’s the first co-production between the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi (London gets first dibs – Moscow doesn’t get the goods for another 12 months). It forms part of... Read more... |
Cinderella, Wheeldon, London ColiseumThursday, 09 July 2015![]() Christopher Wheeldon is the purveyor of pretty. You can perfectly well see why San Francisco Ballet, who commissioned a new full-length work from Wheeldon in 2012, got cold feet at the prospect of tackling the difficult, Britten-scored Prince of the... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2014), Royal BalletSunday, 07 December 2014![]() Christopher Wheeldon’s hard-working mix of skewed classical ballet, vaudeville and Victorian theatrical magic achieved through state-of-the-art technique wasn’t much liked by theartsdesk’s critics on its first and second outings. Marvelling at it on... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, Royal BalletFriday, 11 April 2014![]() Another week, another major British ballet company takes on a key cultural patrimony in a brand-new work. It might seem odd that the Royal Ballet’s new Winter’s Tale generates more critical reservations than English National Ballet’s take on... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2013), Royal BalletSaturday, 16 March 2013![]() Art is a fickle subject – hence why many preeminent philosophers offer different theories as to how we can begin to understand the opposing effect the same object or creation can have on different people. Many can be mildly affected by a given... Read more... |
Apollo/ New Ratmansky/ New Wheeldon, Royal BalletSaturday, 23 February 2013![]() Two world premieres in one night is almost more pressure than anyone can bear - choreographers, commissioning company or audience. Still more when the spotlit dancemakers are probably the two top Western names in the art, Alexei Ratmansky and... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2012), Royal BalletSunday, 18 March 2012![]() "I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works," accuses the Mad Hatter. "It was the best butter," replies the March Hare apologetically, in Lewis Carroll’s original tale. Butter might or might not suit the works onstage in the Royal Ballet’s everything... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Choreographer Christopher WheeldonSaturday, 15 October 2011![]() Those of us un-Zeitgeisty enough to miss the Royal Ballet’s first new full-length ballet in 20 years during its first run can now catch up. Opus Arte’s DVD release of the televised Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tells a different story from the... Read more... |
Ballo Della Regina/ Live Fire Exercise/ DGV, Royal BalletSaturday, 14 May 2011![]() Current affairs can be an on-trend choreographer's nemesis. In the new triple bill at the Royal Ballet last night, you could watch a new video-game war-ballet by Wayne McGregor, while blotting out thoughts of the Taliban suicide massacre in... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal BalletMonday, 28 February 2011![]() Some ballets are drugs in themselves - you’re under their sway no matter what the performance. Other ballets need drugs to help. This new Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is definitely of the second kind, a very odd, very shallow, very bright and... Read more... |
Production Gallery: The Royal Ballet's Alice's Adventures in WonderlandMonday, 28 February 2011![]() Charlotte MacMillan took photographs of the first new full-length ballet at The Royal Ballet for 16 years, Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which premiered last night at the Royal Opera House. Designs are by Bob Crowley,... Read more... |
Christopher Wheeldon premiere, New York City BalletSunday, 30 May 2010![]() What is going on at New York City Ballet, home of the abstract, neo-classical, pared-down, no-scenery, no-story, nothing-extraneous aesthetic that George Balanchine made into an artistic religion? So far, three out of the four pieces commissioned... Read more... |
