‘Be a judge on Strictly? Never say never…’
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon talks to Mark Monahan about his rise – and the many allegations afflicting the ballet world
Christopher Wheeldon is arguably the most sought-after choreographer at work today. I cannot, then, resist asking this globally garlanded associate artist of the Royal Ballet what he makes of the charming but not exactly highbrow telly behemoth that is Strictly Come Dancing.
“I only ever watch it with my Mum,” he confesses when we meet at the Royal Opera House, “because she’s a huge fan, and I’m always home at Christmas when she watches the special. But it brings dance on to people’s TVS and into the living room. Darcey [Bussell] came to see
An American in Paris, and was really supportive, and I’m sure a lot of our audience were Strictly watchers. I think we can be very grateful to it.”
Wheeldon, 44, is of course referring to the all-new Gershwin show that he created in 2015. A superb piece of populist ballet-theatre, it transferred from Paris to Broadway to the West End, earning glowing reviews and a Tony Award for Wheeldon. And yet, despite this, the London run last year was disappointingly short.
“The day we opened was the first big terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge, and the theatres in London said it was the worst summer in 25 years for ticket sales,” says Wheeldon a little ruefully. “We also suffered because the theatre” – the 2,000-plus-seater Dominion – “was a little bit too big for us. It was exactly the right scale for the production itself, but as far as seat numbers went…”
An American in Paris is nevertheless just one facet of an exceptional CV. Wheeldon’s work for the Royal Ballet has included the turbo-charged DGV: Danse à grande vitesse (2006), the psychologically inquisitive Electric Counterpoint (2008) and the grandly sepulchral Aeternum (2013). In 2011, he made Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the first new full-evening ballet at Covent Garden for 16 years, and now a mainstay of the Royal Ballet’s repertory. In 2014, he created The Winter’s Tale, an immensely ambitious Shakespeare adaptation that was instantly hailed by public and critics alike as a modern classic. Six months after winning the Tony, Wheeldon was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours.
Next week sees The Winter’s Tale’s second, keenly anticipated revival at Covent Garden. And, if you’ve never managed to catch it, I cannot urge you enough to do so. Wheeldon’s steps have never been more marvellously musical, lyrical or energetic, nor his storytelling more eloquent. “I work a lot on blind faith,” he says, “because so much of what I do happens in the studio with the dancers. Wayne [Mcgregor] was also making a new piece and had all the principal dancers, so I made the ballet out of order, sometimes with dancers that weren’t even meant to dance the roles. It was quite a broken process that thankfully slotted into place.”
Next month, Covent Garden audiences will also be treated to a new and very different Wheeldon piece. One third of the Royal Ballet’s triple bill celebrating the centenary of Leonard Bernstein, this shorter, as yet untitled work will see him return to the kind of abstraction with which he first gained fame at the start of the millennium, as New York City Ballet’s first ever artist in residence.
Wheeldon reveals that it’s set to Bernstein’s Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium), with costumes by fashion designer Erdem Moralıoğlu. Plato’s original text depicts a series of off-the-cuff speeches on Eros by several distinguished guests at a banquet. “Obviously, that’s what the Plato Symposium is about,” Wheeldon confirms. “But,” he adds, reassuringly, “this definitely won’t be a bunch of blokes sittings around a dinner table discussing aspects of love.”
Wheeldon’s love of ballet was first sparked as a young boy by a performance of Frederick Ashton’s wonderful sun-dappled romantic comedy La Fille mal gardée – “It was like a little light-bulb going off.” A stint at White Lodge (the Royal Ballet Junior School) finally led to a place with the company itself. However, two years into his time there, while recovering from a sprained ankle, he spotted a vacuum-cleaner advert that promised a free transatlantic return flight with each purchase, and thought: “Why not?”
Suddenly finding himself in Manhattan, Wheeldon asked New York City Ballet if he could pop in for a class. He did, “and Peter [Martins, the company’s then director] came in and watched, and I was offered a job. It was day one in New York!”
Wheeldon moved there soon after – and lives there still, these days with Ross Rayburn, his Texan yoga instructor husband – and in 2000 retired from dancing to be a full-time choreographer. And yet, it has not all been sweetness and light.
In 2016, Wheeldon became a US citizen in order to vote for Hillary Clinton – but then “it all went horribly wrong”, as he puts it. What are his feelings now about his adoptive country, under Trump?
“There was a moment last year where I didn’t know which passport to throw further,” he says. “I was really excited that I finally had them both, and then I thought, I don’t want either of them!”
Then, there was the recent retirement of Martins, NYCB’S longstanding and hugely influential director and Wheeldon’s former mentor, amid allegations of sexual harassment and physical and verbal abuse (all of which Martins denies). Wheeldon is at pains to stress that, if those allegations are true, he doesn’t “condone Peter’s behaviour in any way”. However, he continues: “I suppose I just look forward to a time when even after terrible mistakes have been made, that an entire legacy doesn’t get wiped out, and the positive that has been left behind is not completely discounted. I think there are probably many who disagree, but these are my own hopes.”
British ballet has been no stranger to controversy of late, either. Covent Garden came under fire last year for the number of recently staged ballets (none of them by Wheeldon) that feature sexual violence against women.
Wheeldon is rightly keen that even the very darkest works of Kenneth Macmillan (from Las hermanas to
The Invitation to Mayerling) are preserved. “Those Macmillan ballets are great,” he says. “We can’t just now make everything beige – we need the contrast of the darkness and the light.” Yet he also recognises that some sort of move away from sexual violence in new Royal Ballet works might be welcome, especially in the post-weinstein age: “I think that will happen now,” he says. “The culture’s shifted, and it’s an important time.”
And then, there’s English National Ballet. Last month, it was reported that the company had lost a third of its dancers in two years. It was also claimed that the ongoing relationship between ENB’S artistic director Tamara Rojo (43) and principal dancer Isaac Hernández (27) had contributed to bad feeling within the company.
“I haven’t worked with ENB under Tamara,” Wheeldon says, “but I have a lot of respect for her. She’s not the first director to have fallen in love with a dancer – I mean, we’re in theatre, for God’s sake! You don’t choose who you fall in love with, and from an outsider’s perspective that relationship, for me, is not the issue here. Obviously, the issue of concern is all the other stuff, and I hope they sort it out, because they’re a really good company.”
Talking of running a company, Wheeldon has often been mooted as a possible future candidate for director of the Royal Ballet. Would he consider going for it next time it comes up?
“It’s complicated,” he says, “but at the moment I’d have to say no. There is so much to explore in both the ballet and theatre world. I wouldn’t feel right saying yes to something that needed my undivided attention when I can’t give it. But that day may come.”
And what about one day emulating his friend Darcey, and filling that – some might argue – even more influential and coveted dance post, that of a judge on the mighty Strictly?
“If they invited me to be a guest judge,” he says, “I’d be a guest judge.” He laughs loudly. “No one’s asked! Never say never…”
‘I didn’t know which passport to throw further. I was excited to have both but I didn’t want either of them’
The Winter’s Tale is in rep at the Royal Opera House, WC2, from Tuesday until March 21, and the Bernstein triple bill from March 15 until April 9. Tickets: 020 7304 4000; roh.org.uk