English choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has been an Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet since 2012. Wheeldon trained at The Royal Ballet School and danced with The Royal Ballet from 1991 to 1993. In 1993, he was invited to join New York City Ballet, where he was promoted to soloist in 1998. In 2000, he ended his dancing career to devote himself entirely to his choreography. 

Wheeldon created his first work, Slavonic Dances, for the Diamond Project of New York City Ballet in 1997. After that, he was resident choreographer with this company from 2001 to 2008. Since then, Wheeldon has created works for, amongst others, The Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and The Metropolitan Opera; he was also the first British choreographer to create a new choreography for the Bolshoi Ballet. In 2007, he founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, with which he remained associated until 2010. 

At Dutch National Ballet, Wheeldon successively staged Continuum (2005) and Tryst (2009). He went on to create Duet (2012) and Concerto Concordia (2015) for the company, and in 2012 he also created a new full-length version of the ballet fairytale Cinderella, a co-production of Dutch National Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. For this production he was awarded with the Prix Benois de la Danse, also known as ‘the Oscar of dance’. Wheeldons latest work The Two of Us will have its European premiere with Dutch National Ballet during the Holland Festival 2021, as part of the programme of Four Seasons. 

Wheeldon’s other successful full-length productions include Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2011, The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada), The Winter’s Tale (2014, The Royal Ballet) and The Nutcracker (2016, Joffrey Ballet). For The Winter’s Tale, he received his second Prix Benois de la Danse for best choreographer. Furthermore, Wheeldon choreographed the closing ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012 and made his musical debut with An American in Paris in 2014. This production was awarded with no less than four Tony Awards, including the award for best choreography. 

Wheeldon was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2016 for ‘services to promote the interests and reputation of British classical and theatre dance worldwide’. The new musical about Michael Jackson, MJ, for which Wheeldon is both directing and choreographing, was supposed to premiere on Broadway in the summer of 2020, but has been postponed due to the corona crisis.