Wendy Whelan

Wendy Whelan is the Associate Artistic Director of New York City Ballet. As a dancer with NYCB, Whelan counted principal roles in more than 125 ballets in her repertory, dancing virtually all of the major Balanchine roles, working closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his works, and was also the dancer most choreographed on in NYCB history, creating leading roles in more than 50 new works by such choreographers as William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Jorma Elo, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Wayne McGregor, Peter Martins, and many others. Following her retirement from NYCB in 2014, she cultivated multidisciplinary performance projects with a range of collaborators including choreographers Kyle Abraham, Joshua Beamish, Brian Brooks, Alejandro Cerrudo, Lucinda Childs, Daniele Désnoyers, Javier De Frutos, David Neumann, Annie-B Parson, and Arthur Pita. Whelan’s awards include the Dance Magazine Award, the Jerome Robbins Award, and a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement in Performance.