Born in Scotland and raised in England, Wheater, 48, was trained at the Royal Ballet School. As a young dancer, he was cast in numerous productions at the Royal Opera House, including The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Anastasia, and Rudolf Nureyev’s Nutcracker. At the age of thirteen, he worked with Sir Frederick Ashton on the world premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice, a production in which Wheater performed throughout England and Europe. In addition, he performed Marguerite and Armand with Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn at the London Coliseum.

Wheater began his professional career with The Royal Ballet and joined London Festival Ballet on the advice of Nureyev, where he danced Romeo & Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and many other works. After two years he was promoted to principal dancer. In 1982, he joined The Australian Ballet, and under the direction of Marilyn Rowe, danced a multitude of roles in both classical and contemporary works. He also was a guest performer in Western Australia and Asia with Barry Morland, who created several ballets on him. It was in Australia in 1984 while Mr. Arpino was staging Suite Saint-Saens for The Joffrey Ballet there, that he saw Wheater dance and invited him to join the Company, which Wheater did the following year.

From 1985-1989, as a member of The Joffrey Ballet, Wheater worked with Robert Joffrey and danced in many American works by choreographers such as Mr. Arpino, William Forsythe, Eugene Loring, Mark Morris, and Laura Dean, in addition to performing the lead in numerous Sir Frederick Ashton and John Cranko works.

In 1989, Wheater joined San Francisco Ballet, dancing lead roles in nearly all of the Company’s full-length productions, including Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker. In addition to performing a vast repertory, Wheater had many works created on him by choreographers such as San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, James Kudelka, Bintley, and Morris, among others. In 1996, Wheater ended his dancing career after suffering a major neck injury.

After a long and successful career as a principal dancer, Ashley Wheater assumed the role of ballet master with San Francisco Ballet in 1996 and was named assistant to the artistic director in 2002. He continued to perform principal character roles with the Company, including Drosselmeyer in Tomasson’s current production of The Nutcracker and Kitri’s father in Tomasson/Possokhov’s Don Quixote.

"Ashley Wheater was our unanimous choice as the ideal person to succeed Mr. Arpino as Artistic Director of the Joffrey. He embodies all of the characteristics we are seeking: understanding and respect for the unique place The Joffrey holds in the ballet world, vision to lead the company to new artistic excellence, rapport with the dancers, leadership experience, a fantastic network of colleagues and friends in the international ballet universe and, most wonderfully, a love of Chicago and appreciation for the importance of The Joffrey to Chicago. We interviewed an impressive group of highly-qualified candidates, but no one matched Ashley in his overall qualifications. We are delighted to announce him as our new artistic leader," said Pamela Strobel, Joffrey Ballet Succession Committee Chair.

Added Jon H. Teeuwissen, Joffrey Ballet Executive Director, “Ashley brings a rich tapestry of dance experience that encompasses everything Joffrey – from dancing the works of Ashton and Tudor at the Royal Ballet to working directly with Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino during his years with the Company to establishing an eclectic international network of emerging choreographers that he has worked with during his tenure with the San Francisco Ballet”.

"I am delighted that Ashley has been asked to lead The Joffrey Ballet and I think it's a great opportunity for him," said San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director and Choreographer Helgi Tomasson. "I've had a wonderful working relationship with Ashley in his many capacities at the San Francisco Ballet, not only as a dancer, ballet master, my assistant, and as a character dancer, but also as a colleague and friend. I have no doubt he will rise to this new challenge and I wish him all the best in his new endeavors."

A.M. Profile: New Artistic Director at Joffrey Ballet

By Lorene Yue
Sept. 25, 2007

(Crain’s) — A severe spinal injury ended Ashley Wheater’s notable career, but he didn't abandon his craft.
During practice, the classically trained ballet dancer who has danced with Rudolf Nureyev was executing a particular lift and ended up rupturing “every disc in my spine,” he said. He continued to dance, but it was becoming increasingly painful and he was slowly losing sensation in his arms and fingers.

“Over eight months, my hands got more numb and I had trouble washing my hair,” said Mr. Wheater, whose only option was surgery that would effectively cap his successful career as a principal dancer for the San Francisco Ballet.

Now Mr. Wheater, 48, is in a different type of starring role. On Monday, he became Joffrey Ballet’s second artistic director, taking over from Gerald Arpino, who co-founded the company in 1956 with Robert Joffrey. By the time Mr. Wheater’s productions hit the stage in early 2009, the Joffrey Ballet (by then in its $35-million new home at 8 E. Randolph St.) will have felt the full gaze of Chicago arts patrons wondering how the storied dance company will fare without Mr. Arpino at its helm.

“I have a lot of plans to get the ball rolling for the future and I’m not going to tell you about them,” Mr. Wheater said. “It would be a bit premature.”

When Mr. Arpino decided to step aside in December, retired Joffrey dancer Cameron Basden stepped in as acting artistic director and a succession committee launched a full-fledged search for a replacement. Mr. Wheater was among at least 50 candidates who expressed interest in the artistic director position and the last of six finalists to complete an intensive three-day interview with the succession committee. Everything from strategic planning to the ability to lead dance classes to schmoozability was carefully assessed, said Pam Strobel, chair of the committee.

“Up until we met Ashley, we thought we would have difficulty choosing (among the finalists),” she said.

Mr. Wheater’s background, from dancing with the Joffrey to being the right-hand man of a Joffrey alum in San Francisco to “every single thing he did and said,” made it apparent that he was the right man to take over Mr. Arpino’s position, she said. In the end, the 15-member succession committee unanimously recommended him to the executive committee, which gave its approval Sept. 17.

Ms. Strobel said she was impressed by how Mr. Wheater understood the importance of having a ballet company in Chicago and retaining its repertoire and reputation.

"He's not into any dramatic overnight change," she said.

Transitioning from a founder can be a “very daunting” experience, said Valerie Lies, president and chief executive officer of the Donors Forum of Chicago.

“He’s not a clone of (Mr. Arpino) and the board needs to manage its expectations,” she said. “Chances are (a clone) is not what they wanted to hire.”

Her advice to Mr. Wheater: Build a strong relationship with the board of directors and avoid any immediate dramatic changes.

Mr. Wheater, who was born in Scotland, remembers watching his older sister attend ballet classes, and at six years old, he was interested in giving ballet a try. He was accepted into London’s Royal Ballet School at age 9 and moved to London at age 10 to go to the boarding school. By 18 he was dancing the prince roles in Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. He became a principal dancer for London Festival Ballet at the unheard-of age of 20.

Mr. Wheater was dancing with the Australian Ballet in his mid-20s when he met Mr. Arpino, who was in the country staging a piece for the Joffrey Ballet. Mr. Arpino suggested that he consider auditioning for Joffrey Ballet, and by 1985, Mr. Wheater was part of the company, then based in New York. (Joffrey made Chicago its permanent home in 1995.)

Mr. Wheater headed west in 1989 to join the San Francisco Ballet and its artistic director Helgi Tomasson (who danced two years with Joffrey).

“They had an incredible repertoire that I had never done — George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins,” Mr. Wheater said of the San Francisco Ballet. “And, suddenly, all these people were coming to this company to do work for them.”

Then came the debilitating spinal injury in 1996 and subsequent corrective surgery. Mr. Wheater ended up staying with the San Francisco Ballet, taking on the role of ballet master and, later on, assistant artistic director.

He has a commitment to Mr. Tomasson to dance in a televised performance of “The Nutcracker” this winter. It is undetermined, however, whether his turn as Herr Drosselmeyer, the godfather of central character Clara, will be his swan song.

“We’ll see,” he said.

New Joffrey Leader Draws on Résumé to Shape a Future

October 14, 2007
Dance - N.Y. Times

By GIA KOURLAS
IN 1984 Ashley Wheater was dancing with the Australian Ballet when he caught the eye of Gerald Arpino, a founder of the Joffrey Ballet, who was staging “Suite Saint-Saëns” in Melbourne. Mr. Arpino not only cast him in the ballet but also offered some breezy words of wisdom. “He said: ‘Baby, you should come to America. You’d love America,’” Mr. Wheater recalled, laughing. “It’s true. He was exactly like that.”

Mr. Wheater followed Mr. Arpino’s suggestion, which turned out to be prophetic: He did indeed fall in love with America, and American dance. The next year he joined the Joffrey Ballet, where he remained until 1989. Now Mr. Wheater, with Mr. Arpino’s blessing and the unanimous approval of a succession committee, has become the company’s new artistic director, the first after Mr. Arpino and Robert Joffrey, who formed the troupe in 1956.

Mr. Wheater, 48, is poised to give the Joffrey, based in Chicago since 1995, a bit of a kick-start. “I want the Joffrey to be the company that it started out being, which was eclectic, with a huge respect for where we’ve come from,” he said recently in New York while working with Christopher Wheeldon, a close friend, and his new company, Morphoses. (Mr. Wheater said he regards Mr. Wheeldon as “a little brother.”)...

...Mr. Wheater was a late entry in the five-month search for a successor to Mr. Arpino, who became the company’s sole director after Joffrey died in 1988 and is now the company’s artistic director emeritus. When the choreographer Lar Lubovitch recommended Mr. Wheater to the Joffrey’s executive director, Jon H. Teeuwissen, there were three serious candidates.

“I am so grateful to Lar for making that call,” Mr. Teeuwissen said. “While the other applicants had many strengths, there wasn’t one who hit the ball out of the park. I don’t mean to make him sound like a god or something, but Ashley really was the complete package: someone who had international experience, who had danced with the Joffrey and who had hands-on experience working with both founders.”

Mr. Wheater, a tall, elegant man with a charming knack for seeing both the beauty and the absurdity of life, has made an impact in ballet over the years, most recently behind the scenes as the assistant to Helgi Tomasson, the artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, where he also danced and was a ballet master. He has never choreographed, preferring to spend his time coaching and teaching company class. “I would sooner be the gardener,” he said, “than the landscape architect.”

Born in Scotland but raised in England, Mr. Wheater left his parents and three sisters in Leicestershire when he was 10 to live in London, where he attended the Royal Ballet School and worked closely with the ballet luminaries Frederick Ashton and Rudolf Nureyev.

Eventually Nureyev, whom Mr. Wheater considers a mentor, persuaded him to join the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet), where Nureyev choreographed the classic story ballets “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Sleeping Beauty.” “Rudolf said, ‘I’m doing great work there,’” Mr. Wheater recalled with a wicked grin.

After dancing with the Australian Ballet and the Joffrey, he joined the San Francisco Ballet, where he performed works by Balanchine and Robbins and also danced principal roles in story ballets. His dancing career ended abruptly in 1996 after a severe neck injury during a rehearsal with a German choreographer, whom he declined to name.

“Every disc in my neck was ruptured,” Mr. Wheater said. “My doctors said: ‘We don’t have a lot of options here, but we need to operate. And if we operate, it’s the end of your career.’ I said: ‘I just don’t want to be in a wheelchair. If I can’t dance, at least I want to be able to swim and teach and coach.’”

Mr. Tomasson assured Mr. Wheater that he would have a place in the company — on or off the stage — and while wearing a halo brace, he began coaching dancers. At the Joffrey Ballet, Mr. Wheater plans to continue his commitment to teaching and coaching; he said he also hoped to expand the company’s repertory with ballets by Ashton, John Cranko, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Kenneth MacMillan. “Down the road,” he said, “I’d love to do Ashton’s ‘A Month in the Country’ because it’s exquisite and because I know that Robert Joffrey loved it too.”

But Mr. Wheater is just as passionate about providing the company with new choreography, as well as improving the overall quality of dancing and production. He plans, as he put it, “to have lots of conversations with lots of people,” including some who have worked with the company in the past, among them William Forsythe and Mark Morris. Introducing work by Mr. Wheeldon, given their friendship and Mr. Wheater’s admiration of his work, is a given. So far he has his eye on the luminous “Carousel (A Dance).”

Whether through new repertory or teaching, Mr. Wheater is intent upon nurturing dancers. He is emphatic that he will not give up studio time, no matter how pressing his duties as artistic director become.

“That’s how you imprint what you want,” he said. “We make a choice in our lives to commit to something, and as I said to the dancers: ‘Come to the studio and put in 110 percent. That’s what I’m going to do.’ Then you can spend the whole day getting somewhere. I would hope that every day I teach, I inspire people. I’ve been teaching for years now.” He laughed. “I don’t think I lack inspiration.”