Christopher Wheeldon trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. He joined New York City Ballet in 1993 and was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He served as NYCB’s first-ever artist in residence in 2000-01 and was named NYCB’s first resident choreographer in July 2001. Christopher has created productions for all the world’s major ballet companies, including New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. In 2007, Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate Artist for Sadler’s Wells.

He has made several works for the Metropolitan Opera, including Dance of the Hours for La Gioconda (2006) and Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen (2012). He has also created ballet sequences for the feature film Center Stage (2000) and Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway (2002). In 2014 Christopher directed and choreographed the musical version of An American In Paris, which premiered at the Chatelet Theatre, Paris. The Broadway production premiered at the Palace Theatre in April 2015, winning the Tony Award for Best Choreography and Outer Critics’ Award for Best Choreography and Direction. The National Tour production was launched in Boston in October 2016. In 2016 Christopher was the artistic director for Les Arts Decoratif’s Fashion Forward exhibit in Paris at the same time as NYCB was premiering American Rhapsody, the Royal Opera House had an all-Wheeldon programme and the Joffrey Ballet launched the world premiere of a re-imagined Nutcracker. In 2017 American In Paris opened on London’s West End and NYCB showcased an all-Wheeldon programme.

Christopher’s future projects include directing and choreographing Encore’s Brigadoon at City Center, creating ballets for San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound Festival, and celebrating the centenary of Leonard Bernstein’s birthday with a creation for The Royal Ballet. Christopher’s awards include the Martin E. Segal Award from the Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, a Dance Magazine Award, the 2014 Leonard Massine Prize for Choreography, and the London Critic’s Circle Award for Best New Ballet for Polyphonia. In 2013 and 2015 his productions of Cinderella and A Winter’s Tale won the Benois De La Danse, and he is an Olivier Award winner for both Aeternum and A Winter’s Tale. Christopher was awarded an OBE in 2016.