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<img src="http://www.eif.co.uk/images/2002_updates/eif-logo-small.gif" alt="" />Edinburgh Festival 2003

Britain's Balanchine?
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is fêted in America, and now Edinburgh is paying tribute to his brilliance. He talks to Ismene Brown in The Daily Telegraph.


The new Picasso, the new Mozart, the new JK Rowling – maybe it's human nature that the loud-hailers of art need always to know where the next fix of genius is going to come from. In the ballet world, the search for the successor to George Balanchine, the Russian who dominated the 20th century and founded American ballet, has been frenetic ever since he died 10 years ago. For fate to supply a matching genius so soon seems unlikely, but a young fellow from England has been found whom even the least hyperbolic critics in America believe is something real, a master in the making, rather than a pretender.

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Suite smell of success
The hottest name to drop, Christopher Wheeldon is set to storm the festival. By DEBRA CRAINE for The Times:


AS FAR AS DANCE is concerned, the Edinburgh International Festival has always prided itself on being different. The festival’s guiding principle is to present attractions that can’t be seen elsewhere in Britain, so inevitably there’s an international slant to the programming. That’s certainly true this year with the dance programme, which features the Cullberg Ballet from Sweden, Compagnie François Verret from France and their compatriots the Bordeaux Opera Ballet.

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<small>[ 27 July 2003, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

The choreographer
Sunday July 27, 2003
The Observer


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Matthew wrote in another topic, re. Ismene Brown's article:

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JK Rowling has come a long way. Perhaps this is a little stretch.

<small>[ 17 August 2003, 05:36 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

If you haven't had a chance to see Muriel Mafree dance, keep an eye out for her. She is such a fabulous dancer!

Wheeldon leaps to new heights
By Jackie McGlone for Scotland on Sunday

IN ONLY a few short years, Christopher Wheeldon has become ballet’s answer to David Beckham - a blue-eyed, blond, beautiful Brit who is adored for his astonishing talent, his glamorous good looks, and a career that spins daily to new heights. If only Beckham could bend it like wunderkind Wheeldon.

Olivier Award-winner Wheeldon’s life is a whirl of activity. He is New York City Ballet’s (NYCB) artist-in-residence and is making a new piece for San Francisco Ballet, which they premiere in Edinburgh next week, and which is appropriately entitled Rush.

When we met in New York earlier this year, the golden boy had just staged the world premiere of Liturgy, the ninth of the "utterly distinct, fully mature, brilliantly executed ballets" he has created for NYCB. The Newsday critic quoted went on to write that the Somerset-born, former Royal Ballet dancer "could be the best thing to happen to ballet for 50 years".

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Christopher Wheeldon is all the rage in Edinburgh:

Interview from The Scotsman.

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'I try to suppress the urge to scream'
He is the world's most explosively talented choreographer. And he's only 30. Christopher Wheeldon tells Judith Mackrell for The Guardian about 'extreme ballet'.

Early this year, the directors of the world's most important ballet companies met in Suffolk for a historic summit. Top of the agenda was the crisis in repertory: where were all the original, even half-decent new works that could ensure ballet's future? Where was all the fresh talent?

Thankfully, one choreographer is single-handedly proving to be the answer to their dreams.

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Christopher Wheeldon - All the right moves
By Hilary Ostlere for The Financial Times


If choreographer Christopher Wheeldon worked in the business world he would be a captain of industry, a billionaire perhaps, by now. At 30 he's a brilliant artist whose success cannot be counted in dollars or pounds so much as in the growing appreciation of his work and demand for his product: namely ballets. And since good choreographers are as rare as fat ballerinas, he's achieved international renown - a growing chorus of critics, dance pundits and public are hailing him as one of today's brightest and most promising young choreographers in an art form that's always hungry for, but sadly lacking in, great choreographic talent.

Completely dedicated to dance, Wheeldon has grown from a "bossy little boy", as he describes himself, whose first efforts at choreography at the age of eight had to do with little girls hatching out of eggs to become cygnets in Swan Lake, to a continent-hopping choreographer whose every succeeding work seems to stretch his artistic horizons further.

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<small>[ 23 August 2003, 07:03 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Word is that the new Wheeldon ballet is pretty exciting. I can't wait to hear about how it goes.

And still they come! It's the turn of the sunday Herald to interview Christopher Wheeldon:

Ballet’s action hero
Festival Dance: Revered in the world of modern ballet, young British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has a triple-bill coming to Edinburgh. Ellie Carr met him for The Sunday Herald:


He has been hailed as the saviour of modern ballet. But although Christopher Wheeldon has been known to wear tights, he insists he is no Superman. Seen as ballet’s brightest young hope, British-born Wheeldon is resident choreographer at New York City Ballet (NYCB). And he’s honoured at this year’s Festival with a triple-bill of works performed by another of his long-standing collaborators, San Francisco Ballet (SFB).
But he says: “If I spent too much time thinking about being the action-hero, in the end I wouldn’t be able to defeat the dragon. There’s too much pressure that goes along with dwelling on what people are saying about me – as flattering as it is.”

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<small>[ 24 August 2003, 03:34 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Article from The Scotsman.

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Article on Christopher Wheeldon from The Herald.

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Review from The Scotsman.

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And an article from The Edinburgh Evening News.

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<small>[ 29 August 2003, 01:13 AM: Message edited by: Joanne ]</small>

Wheeldon triple bill

Playhouse

Judith Mackrell
Saturday August 30, 2003
The Guardian

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No frills but plenty of thrills
By Debra Craine
The Times
Edinburgh Playhouse

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Now I know why I'm happy most of the time:



<small>[ 30 August 2003, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: Azlan ]</small>

I see by the photo in the article above that Tina LeBlanc is back, so now I'm happy, too!

<small>[ 30 August 2003, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: djb ]</small>

It's worth noting that Macaulay can be a tough critic and does not hand out plaudits lightly. His final paragraph is high praise indeed from him, in particular, "If the company feels this way at home, San Francisco is the happiest place to watch ballet today."

For a while I felt indignation on behalf of the Company when some writers persisted in using obselete league table frameworks and described them as a "Regional" company. San Francisco Ballet is now at a stage in its development where one can smile at such misguided statements and move on.