Wheeldon's Vision Will Stick To The Pointe

The Age

Friday June 22, 2007

Jo Roberts

The British choreographer says classical ballet is alive and well - in Australia. Jo Roberts reports.

CHRISTOPHER Wheeldon sees himself as a keeper of the flame. The British-born superstar of choreography knows that fewer and fewer creators of new dance are committed to keeping the classical ballet technique alive. In fact, it's metaphorical gloves off for Wheeldon when it comes to choreographers who take off the pointe shoes.

"Once the shoes come off I start to go, 'Oh God no, more shoe, more shoe!'," he exclaims in mock panic.

It's one of the reasons the Royal Ballet-trained Wheeldon, 34, is giving up his plum job as resident choreographer at New York City Ballet to start his own company, Morphoses.

"I think it's important for me to be as present as I can and to help young choreographers as much as possible," he says. "It would be a shame to see that dying away."

It's also the reason Wheeldon was in Sydney last month for the premiere of the Australian Ballet's triple bill of neoclassical works, New Romantics, which has its Melbourne opening tonight. One of Wheeldon's works, After the Rain, is on the bill along with two other examples of classical ballet with a contemporary edge: George Balanchine's sculpted 1928 work, Apollo - seen as the birth of neoclassical ballet - and Constant Variants, a new work by Australian Ballet resident choreographer, Stephen Baynes.

Wheeldon loves working with the Australian Ballet because pure technique is surviving in this country better than in others, he says.

"Stephen Baynes makes ballets and the young choreographers I see working around the company, looking at some of the Body Torque (the Australian Ballet's Sydney-only showcase of up-and-coming choreographers) stuff - even though there's a lot of influence from (Jiri) Kylian and (William) Forsythe - it's still pointe shoe, that's good. I like to see the shoes on!"

It is Wheeldon's piece that closes the New Romantics bill, a poignant work given extra emotional weight in its Australian premiere in Sydney last month when Steven Heathcote and Kirsty Martin danced the tender pas de deux the same day Heathcote announced his retirement from principal roles. The emotion in the Opera House audience was palpable, the roar deafening for the pair's bows.

"Steven was the first person I thought of for the role because it needs to be danced by someone with a poetic weight," says Wheeldon. "But it wasn't until I got here this time that David told me that Steven's plan was to retire, so it's great, it's very appropriate. I hope it doesn't become the world retirement ballet though," he adds with a laugh, having created the work as a swan song for retiring NYC Ballet principal Jock Soto. It will now become Heathcote's swan song in Melbourne on July 3.

"It's a nice synergy," said Heathcote of the work when announcing his retirement last month. "It's a beautiful piece."

Wheeldon sees a similar "quietness" between Soto and Heathcote. "It's a quiet, self-confident masculine presence that's very moving and very much there, but it's not showy, it's humility actually. Which for this piece is important. Because it's not about one or the other, it's very much about the meeting of the two, the partnership."

After the Rain begins with six dancers, but ends with two. Wheeldon says the work's title was meant to convey the idea "of someone moving on and for it to not necessarily be a negative transition".

"Because I think it is difficult for dancers, when they finish their careers and go on to something else, many dancers have a really, really hard time with that," he says. "I wanted it to suggest, as the ballet does, just the sort of calm and peace and beauty of moving out of a very dynamic situation, like a career, or a rainstorm."

For his part, Wheeldon finished dancing early, six years ago at the age of 28, as the urge to choreograph outweighed that to dance.

"I danced a lot and was really proud of what I'd done, but felt like I wasn't really going any further in my career as a dancer, and had the opportunity to transition."

Now Wheeldon is stepping up for the next career move, to create a company that will become a "melting pot" for young designers, visual artists, filmmakers, composers, choreographers and dancers, with a specific vision to keep pure ballet alive; a need he does not believe is being met by enough companies.

"I think there's definite room for improvement," he says. "I don't think the ballet companies that are 'up there' are necessarily all fantastic and doing the right things. I just think everyone's struggling with keeping ballet relevant. I think the only way to do that now, perhaps is by starting afresh and building something from the ground up.

"I'm just really interested in finding out from 16, 17, 18 year olds about why they don't come to ballet, what they do like when they come, what they don't like . . . they do like the more contemporary work, they enjoy work that has a bit of crossover to it. I'd like to draw them in and give them some of that, but also show them the beauty and what's so wonderful about where we've come from."

New Romantics, from tonight until July 3 at the State Theatre, Arts Centre. Book on 1300 136 166.

LINK

? australianballet.com.au

© 2007 The Age

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