Wheeldon has been compared to ballet masters George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Born in England, he was working on his own inimitable style in New York for a few years, and now he is translating magical English classics into language of contemporary choreography — Shakespeare’s The Whinter’s Tale and Lewis Carroll Alice In Wonderland.
Wheeldon was born in Yeovil (Somerset, England). He began lessons at the East Coker Ballet School when he was eight years old, enrolled in London's Royal Ballet School at age eleven and trained until he was eighteen. While he was still studying, won the Gold Medal at the Prix de Lausanne competition with a solo of his own creation set to music by Benjamin Britten, leaving behind 120 applicants and 15 finalists.
Being encouraged by a renown choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, Wheeldon continued his choreographic researches — both in Great Britain and in USA, where he danced with the New York City Ballet for a few years. He retired from dancing to concentrate on choreographic work in 2000, when he was 28: Wheeldon became first-ever artist in residence of the New York City Ballet, a position created just for him. His first choreographed ballet as resident artist was Polyphonia. It was given its world premiere in January 2001 and received excellent reviews on both sides of Atlantics.
Wheeldon choreographed ballets for numerous companies: Boston Ballet, Washington Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre in USA, Les Grands Ballet and National Ballet in Canada, ballet of the Zürich Opera House, Dutch National and Covent Gaden in Europe. In 2007 ho mounted the ballet Misericordes becoming the first Englishman invited to create a new work for the Bolshoi Ballet.
Furthermore, Wheeldon created his own ballet company Morphoses / The Wheeldon Company and collaborated with Alastair Marriott on the closing ceremony of the London Olympic Games.
