Tag: RESTLESS CREATURE

Restless Creature: The Film

RESTLESS CREATURE, the documentary about Wendy Whelan that dance lovers everywhere have been waiting for, is now playing (thru June 6th) at Film Forum down on Houston Street in New York City. Since, as most of my readers know by now, I’ve been on the disabled list for several weeks, I had the good fortune of receiving a link to watch the film at home.

Very soon after I moved to New York City and started working at Tower Records, Wendy Whelan came in to shop one afternoon. She had been my dream dancer since I first took note of her as an outstanding, unique ballerina in my favorite dance company: New York City Ballet. Feeling overwhelmingly shy in the presence of my idol, I managed to croak out an uncertain “Hello, Wendy!” Incredibly, she seemed equally shy. We talked about the weather.

From that day on, I ran into her frequently – both at the store and around Lincoln Center, where I loved hanging out for hours in hopes of seeing my beloved dancers coming and going from rehearsals and performances. Whenever Wendy passed by, she always stopped to chat; she has an incredible sense of humor, and a knack for making whoever she’s talking to feel…blessed.

I have a million Wendy Whelan stories, and I’ll put some links to some of my favorites at the end of this article. But right now, it’s showtime! Roll RESTLESS CREATURE…

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Above: Brian Brooks and Wendy Whelan, photo by Christopher Duggan

When I think of Wendy Whelan, the word that always comes to mind is: gratitude. Gratitude, not simply for her sublime artistry as a dancer, or her wit and warmth as a friend, but a true feeling of being thankful that our dance careers – hers performing, mine observing – have dovetailed so perfectly. From the first memories of singling her out on a stageful of magnificent dancers in her early days at New York City Ballet down to this very afternoon – watching her in the strikingly candid and deeply moving documentary RESTLESS CREATURE – Wendy has been one of those people who – quite simply – makes life worth living.

The film opens with some footage from Jerome Robbins’ GLASS PIECES, with Wendy and Adrian Danchig-Waring in the pas de deux. Within seconds, the pristine beauty and ineffable mystique of Wendy Whelan have already moved me to tears. And that’s how I spent the entire 90-minute span of watching this film: on a roller-coaster of emotion as Wendy’s transition from prima ballerina to contemporary dancer de luxe is observed at close range in scene after scene which reveal both a deep vulnerability and a powerful strength of will in this complex and supremely human woman.

“If I don’t dance, I’d rather die!” says Wendy early in the film; we then follow her on her journey beyond classical ballet and into another realm of dance: a journey marked by a surgical intervention with all its attendant hope and despair.

Courageously, Wendy even lets us eavesdrop in the operating room, and we can only marvel at the technological advances that make what once would have been an unthinkable procedure go forward smoothly. From thence, with her handsome husband David Michalek ever a quiet pillar of strength, the ups and downs of recovery are chronicled. “It’s depressing to think of what I can’t do anymore,” Wendy broods, as she works thru physical therapy. Yet all the time, the future beckons.

She speaks of roles having been taken away from her at New York City Ballet and of a conversation with Peter Martins that devastated her when he said, “I don’t want people to see you in decline.” With raw honesty, Wendy admits this episode caused her debilitating pain.

But she carries on; her first gentle barre is an obstacle to be overcome: she is anxious to get back to work. With a focus on what she can do, her RESTLESS CREATURE program has taken shape: she will dance duets – not on pointe – with each of four choreographers. But the recovery process stalls as pain begins to creep back in. When a hawk appears outside her window, Wendy takes it as an omen and postpones the RESTLESS CREATURE tour. The toll this decision takes on her is potent.

But, resilience is in her nature. She works thru the pain and finds her strength again. Wendy plans her farewell program at New York City Ballet, determined to take leave of the House of Mr B during her 30th year with the Company. One last surprise comes her way: Alexei Ratmansky asks her to dance in his new creation PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION. She is thrilled by the invitation, and seems to be having a blast doing it. {Wendy is currently staging PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION for Pacific Northwest Ballet.}

The night of the farewell is beautifully documented: Wendy dances with her next-generation partners Tyler Angle and Craig Hall, finishing the evening in a pas de trois specially crafted by Christopher Wheeldon and Akexei Ratmansky which ends with Wendy aloft, leaving the past behind and reaching for the future.

Throughout the film there are delightful glimpses of people I love: Lynne Goldberg, Emily Coates, Sean Stewart, Maria Kowroski and Martin Harvey, Gonzalo Garcia, Edward Watson, Ask LaCour, Chris Bloom, Reid Bartelme, Abi Stafford, Tiler Peck, Sean Suozzi, Joshua Thew, Allegra Kent, Jacques D’Amboise, Wendy Perron, Gillian Murphy, Ethan Stiefel, Gwyneth Muller, Chuck Askegard, and oh-so-many more. Three of Wendy’s most marvelous cavaliers are seen: Jock Soto, Philip Neal, and Peter Boal. Mr. Boal pays Wendy an incredible – and honest – compliment when he says, “You changed how people behave in this profession.”

Watching the film made me think yet again of Wendy as a very special kind of star, for while it is wonderful to be admired, applauded, honored, and revered as an artist, it is even more rewarding to be loved, not only for what you do but for who you are.

At the very end of RESTLESS CREATURE, there is one final tugging of the heartstrings: the film is dedicated to the memory of Albert Evans.

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Here are some past articles from my blog about Wendy Whelan that you might enjoy reading:

Wendy & Pauline

RITE OF SPRING

LABYRINTH WITHIN

Wendy Teaching

Celebrating Wendy Whelan

NYCB Farewell

RESTLESS CREATURE @ The Joyce

Hostess With The Mostess

May 30, 2017
RESTLESS CREATURE @ The Joyce

Above: the Restless Creature, Wendy Whelan, with her four choreographers; clockwise from top left: Kyle Abraham, Brian Brooks, Josh Beamish, and Alejandro Cerrudo; photo courtesy of Ms. Whelan

Tuesday May 26th, 2015 – Wendy Whelan’s RESTLESS CREATURE arrived at The Joyce this evening after an unforeseen delay: it was postponed from last season as Wendy was recuperating from surgery. In this production, the incomparable ballerina dances duets choreographed by four men – Joshua Beamish, Brian Brooks, Kyle Abraham, and Alejandro Cerrudo – and in each duet, she is partnered by the choreographer.

In July 2014, Wendy invited my friend Joe and I to the studio where she and Josh Beamish were rehearsing Josh’s duet in preparation for the London premiere of RESTLESS CREATURE. Tonight, Joe and I had seats in the front row, the better to savour every moment of this imaginative evening of dance.

Musicians are seated on either side of the hall at audience level: pianist Rachel Kudo to our left and the Bryant Park Quartet to our right. It is a beautiful Max Richter cello solo played by the Quartet’s Tomoko Fujita that opens the evening; as the house lights fade, the tall and charismatic Alejandro Cerrudo starts his 2013 duet EGO ET TU with a sustained solo, the music having passed to the piano. Wendy Whelan, clad in white, makes a modest entry from upstage and dances a pensive solo with a vulnerable aspect. As the music reverts to the strings, Wendy and Alejandro are alternately drawn together and pulled apart. The music, which includes works by Philip Glass and Gavin Bryars in addition to the Richter, provides a gorgeous setting for the silken movement of the two dancers, and – as throughout the evening – Joe Levasseur’s lighting designs are a visual enrichment.

A brief interlude from the Bryant players gives Wendy time for a costume-change, and then we move directly to Joshua Beamish 2015 duet CONDITIONAL SENTENCES with Ms. Kudo at the keyboard for J. S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C minor. Both dancers wear red shirts and grey trousers (I rather missed the long red skirt in which Wendy originally danced this piece) and the duet has the air of stylized courtship. Charmingly elusive, they cover the space deftly, ‘speaking’ to us, or to one another, in a wry gestural language. They seem very much like birds of a feather.

Kyle Abraham’s darkly atmospheric duet THE SERPENT AND THE SMOKE begins in gloom with Kyle’s slow solo suddenly erupting in a spastic outburst. Mysterious music – by Hauschka and Hildur Gudnadóttir – creates an ominous expectancy; then, suddenly, there’s intense light. Warily, Wendy approaches Kyle and, to a lamenting theme, tenderness is cautiously explored in movement that is gorgeously stylized. Then silence falls and the dancing becomes more active. A lighting change makes a striking impact, along with a shift of pulse. The dancers pose on the floor as if in a mind-meld, and then, as the scene brightens, they rush about the stage in an enigmatic pursuit as Wendy’s hair comes undone.

Music of Philip Glass ideally serves the Brian Brooks duet FIRST FALL which closes the programme. Reappearing in a daffodil-yellow frock, her hair flowing, Wendy dances a solo in silence. As the Bryant Park Quartet strike up, there’s a fine sense of urgency to the turbulent duet for the two dancers. Being up close gave us an intimate experience as – in the the duet’s most stunning passage – Wendy walks along the lip of the stage leaning on Brian’s bent back. A dancer’s trust in her partner is explored in a series of ‘blind’ fall-backs onto Brian’s hunched body. As the music fades, the dancers walk upstage, Wendy leaning dependently against Brian into a slow collapse.

RESTLESS CREATURE might have been sub-titled “I Could Have Danced All Night” because that’s exactly what Wendy did. It was a tremendous pleasure to watch her take on the variety of movement motifs that the four choreographers asked of her, and to find her so thoroughly invested in dance which speaks a very different dialect from that which she trained and grew up in. As she moves on now to other projects, she remains the fascinating embodiment of everything dance is and can be.

May 26, 2015
She Lights Up My Life

Follow the link to watch a film about Wendy Whelan!

Photo by Matt Murphy.

Follow Wendy’s current project, RESTLESS CREATURE, here.

April 29, 2013