Christopher Wheeldon

Christopher Wheeldon trained at the Royal Ballet School in London and subsequently joined the Royal Ballet as a dancer. In 1993 he moved to New York City Ballet, where he was promoted to principal a few years later. In 2001 he was appointed house choreographer there and has since created numerous works for leading companies around the world. In 2007 Wheeldon formed his own company, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, which linked him to Sadler's Wells in London as a so-called Associate Artist. He has since become an Associate Artist - and thus a kind of house choreographer - of the Royal Ballet and regularly creates works for the company, including the full-length ballets Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter's Tale. Wheeldon's work has been recognised with numerous awards and honours. Among others, he won the prestigious Prix Benois de la Danse in 2013 for his "Cinderella", which was a co-production between the Dutch National Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet in 2012, and in 2015 for "The Winter's Tale". For "An American in Paris" (2014) he received the Tony Award in the category "Best Choreography", and in 2016 he was awarded the British Order of Merit of the rank of OBE.