Wendy Whelan's triumphant return to the nycballet via vogue
are under way. Today she’s dressed in dark skinny jeans and a navy cardigan, but even in this everyday outfit, you can see a body sculpted by the three decades she spent at, 28 of those years as a principal dancer. In a profession where women often bow out by their mid-30s, Whelan’s tenure onstage was remarkable. Now 52, she has become the first woman in the company’s history to hold a permanent position within the artistic leadership. “I never imagined myself here,” she says.
Her appointment as the associate artistic director of NYCB in February—alongside Jonathan Stafford as the new artistic director of NYCB and—not only ended a tumultuous year, it also signaled that the company was in need of a dramatic shift. In January of 2018, Peter Martins, the NYCB’s star dancer turned ballet master in chief, retired, his resignation precipitated by accusations of sexual harassment.
The revelations of #MeTutu, as it was quickly dubbed, have the dimensions of a 21st-century scandal, but gender inequality is practically built into the DNA of ballet. In 19th-century France, upper-class men treated the Paris Opera Ballet as their personal brothel. Balanchine, the Russian-born father of American ballet—and NYCB cofounder—dissuaded his female dancers from marrying or having children, but married four ballerinas himself, each a dancer for whom he also choreographed.
“I like to say it’s a seismic shift,” says Whelan of the change her appointment signals. “It’s a very different field; different soil.” She’s warm and affable, in stark contrast to the imposing czarina one might expect at the head of a major company. And though she does not bring it up, her return to Lincoln Center has a certain poetic justice; as chronicled in the brutal 2016 documentary, her exodus was reluctant.
A few weeks after our interview, Amar Ramasar, one of the male dancers dismissed in the photo-sharing scandal, is reinstated to the company. “He’s had some time to prepare him to enter the new environment that we’re in,” Whelan explains when I get in touch to ask about his reintegration. “It’s very different than when he left.” But for her, the future is primarily about what unfolds onstage. She’s interested in giving female choreographers who’ve been working on a smaller scale a bigger venue.
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