BALLET TO BROADWAY: WHEELDON WORKS Comes to the Royal Ballet
Performances run 9 – 27 May 2025.
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works will celebrate the choreographic talent of The Royal Ballet's Artistic Associate, Christopher Wheeldon. In a career spanning ballet to musicals, Wheeldon has earned international acclaim and multiple awards. This programme showcases the breadth of Wheeldon's choreographic talent with four works from across his repertoire, from sensuous contemporary ballets to the dazzle of Broadway choreography. Conducted by Koen Kessels, Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works promises an evening of unparalleled dance theatre and features a new extended excerpt from the ballet section of the Tony-award-winning An American in Paris, Royal Ballet premieres of The Two of Us and Us (Duet), and a revival of Fool's Paradise.
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works will be streamed live to cinemas around the world on Thursday 22 May 2025, with encore screenings available from Sunday 25 May.
Opening with the luminescent Fool's Paradise, the first of Wheeldon's many collaborations with composer Joby Talbot, the ballet was created in 2007 for Wheeldon's own company, Morphoses, and first performed by The Royal Ballet in 2012.
Two Royal Ballet premieres follow. The Two of Us, set to the wistful songs of Joni Mitchell, is a duet of deep intimacy and yearning, created in 2010 for the Fall for Dance Festival in New York featuring prominent American ballet dancers Sarah Mearns and David Hallberg in its original cast. The Two of Us will be performed by Principal Guest Artist Lauren Cuthbertson and Principal dancer Calvin Richardson. Further shows will be performed by Fumi Kaneko and Francisco Serrano, and Annette Buvoli and Lukas B. Brændsrød.
Us, the second Royal Ballet premiere, is a tender duet danced by two men, created in 2017 for the BalletBoyz and set to music by Keaton Henson. Principal dancers Matthew Ball and Joseph Sissens will perform together on opening night with subsequent performances by Joshua Junker and Liam Boswell, and Leo Dixon and Téo Dubreuil.
Closing the programme is an excerpt of the ballet sequence from the Broadway musical An American in Paris, especially extended for The Royal Ballet. Inspired by the 1951 film of the same name, Wheeldon adapted the work for the Théâtre du Châtelet du Paris in 2014 and subsequently on Broadway where it established Wheeldon as the outstanding musical director-choreographer of his generation. The musical depicts the blossoming romance between the American G.I. Jerry Mulligan and a French ballerina, Lise Dassin. The ballet excerpt was Wheeldon's take on one of the most memorable scenes from the film – an extended sequence in which the two central characters dance through Paris, set to George Gershwin's jazzy melodies.
Principal dancers Francesca Hayward and Cesar Corrales feature as Lise and Jerry in the opening night cast, with Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Joseph Sissens, and Meaghan Grace Hinkis and Luca Acri performing on subsequent evenings.
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