Personal Matters : The New Yorker

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The dancers clearly know this, and feel honored, not just by Wheeldon’s ballets but by any ballet that seems to care for them in a special way. About seven years ago, Whelan, turning thirty, changed before our eyes. She had been a dry, hypercorrect performer. “I work hard,” her dancing seemed to say. Then, suddenly, she relaxed, became witty, wise. In interviews, she gave various reasons for this development, but it was surely abetted by Wheeldon, with whom she began working soon afterward. She’s not the only one he has affected. He has softened that cannonball Alexandra Ansanelli. He has woken up that sleeping beauty Maria Kowroski. But the best example this season was Jenifer Ringer. A feisty thing when she was young, Ringer these days has been putting in a lot of thin performances. But a week after her début in “American in Paris” she did Balanchine’s “Allegro Brillante” as if she were being assumed into Heaven. New roles, serious roles—roles that the dancers can imagine are about them—mean everything to a company. Wheeldon, in his ballets, is telling his colleagues that they are artists, souls. Not just at N.Y.C.B., but throughout ballet in this country, nothing is more desperately needed. ♦

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