The Joyce Theater Adds Performances of Wendy Whelan in RESTLESS CREATURE

The Joyce Theater has announced an added performance to the NYC premiere engagement of Wendy Whelan's acclaimed Restless Creature, presented by The Joyce - in its intimate Chelsea home - from May 26-31. The added performance, due to popular demand, will be Saturday, May 30 at 2pm. For tickets and more information, please visit www.Joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street.

While at New York City Ballet for 30 years, Wendy Whelan mastered Balanchine's neo-classical repertory, danced classics such as Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake and created works with many of today's leading choreographers. Having reached the pinnacle of her career, Whelan, now 47, has embarked on a groundbreaking journey at an age when most ballerinas simply retire from the stage.

Restless Creature is the first work born out of the recently launched Wendy Whelan New Works Initiative. A Joyce co-production and co-commission, Restless Creature features a suite of four duets, each created with a talented young artist with whom Whelan performs. The program includes Kyle Abraham's The Serpent and the Smoke; Josh Beamish's Conditional Sentences; Brian Brooks's First Fall; and Alejandro Cerrudo's Ego Et Tu. Set to music ranging from Bach to Max Richter and from Philip Glass to Hauschka & Hilder Guðnadóttir, Restless Creature explores each artist's particular movement style and aesthetic while capturing the essence of Whelan's unparalleled artistry.

Wendy Whelan studied at the School of American Ballet. She was invited to become a member of the New York City Ballet corps de ballet in 1986 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1991. Whelan has performed a wide spectrum of the Balanchine repertory and has worked closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his ballets. She has originated featured roles in 13 ballets for Christopher Wheeldon, as well as in the ballets of William Forsythe, Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor, Jorma Elo, Shen Wei and Twyla Tharp. In 2007, Whelan was nominated for an Olivier Award and a Critics Circle Award for her performances with Morphoses/Wheeldon Company. She has been a guest artist with The Royal Ballet and with the Kirov Ballet. She received the 2007 Dance Magazine Award, and in 2009 was given a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University. In 2011, she was honored with both The Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie Award for her Sustained Achievement in Performance.

A 2012 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award recipient and 2012 USA Ford Fellow, Kyle Abraham received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for his work in The Radio Show and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2010. The previous year, he was selected as one of Dance Magazine's 25 To Watch for 2009, and received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant in 2008. In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled Abraham as the "best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama." Abraham is currently the New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist for 2012-2014. Visit abrahaminmotion.org for more information.

Canadian-born, New York-based choreographer Joshua Beamish is the Artistic Director of MOVE: the company, a Canadian-American non-profit. Since its formation in 2005, MOVE: the company has brought Beamish's original works to audiences at premiere festivals and halls throughout North America, Asia and Europe. Notable among his many creations are Trap Door Party, a co-production with Cirque du Soleil for World Expo Shanghai, and The Red Nocturnal, a commission from the Bangkok International Festival. Beamish is an alumnus of the New York Choreographic Institute, a New York City Ballet affiliate; a Jerome Robbins Foundation grantee; and the 2012-2013 National Incubator Artist-in-Residence at the American Dance Institute. Visit movethecompany.com for more information.

Choreographer Brian Brooks was recently awarded with a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a proud recipient of the NY City Center Fellowship (2012-2013) and the Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant (2013). His dance group, the Brian Brooks Moving Company, will be presented by BAM as part of their 2013 Next Wave Festival. This year, Brooks has been commissioned to create new works for The Juilliard School, the Vail international Dance Festival and Alfred University. He is currently choreographing director Julie Taymor's new production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, as the inaugural performance for the Theatre for a New Audience's Brooklyn home. He has dedicated much of the past decade to education, serving on the part-time faculties of both Princeton and Rutgers Universities, among others. Originally from Hingham, MA, Brooks has lived in New York City since 1994. Visit brianbrooksmovingcompany.com for more information.

Born in Madrid, Spain, Alejandro Cerrudo received his training at the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Danza de Madrid. After becoming a professional dancer in 1998, Cerrudo's dance career has been shaped by companies such as Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2008, Cerrudo was named Hubbard Street Choreographic Fellow and became the company's first Resident Choreographer in 2009. He has created several works for Hubbard Street, including collaborations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Nederlands Dans Theater. Cerrudo's works are performed by dance companies worldwide.

Joe Levasseur (Lighting Designer) has collaborated with many dance and performance artists including John Jasperse, RoseAnne Spradlin, Sarah Michelson, David Dorfman, Jodi Melnick, Beth Gill, Maria Hassabi, Ishmael Houston-Jones, LeeSaar the Company, Anna Sperber, Megan Sprenger and Christopher Williams. He has received two Bessie awards for his design work; in 2009, his Drop Clock Installation was featured in the lobby of Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts); and in 2010, he showed a collection of original paintings at Performance Space 122. Ongoing projects include work with Big Dance Theater, Jennifer Monson, Palissimo and Jane Comfort. Visit joelevasseur.com for more information.

David Michalek (Creative Director) is an artist who takes the concept and techniques of portraiture as the starting point for the creation of his works in a range of mediums, on both a large and small-scale. While earning a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature from U.C.L.A., Michalek worked as an assistant to noted photographer Herb Ritts. Beginning in the mid-1990s, he began his professional photographic career working as a portrait artist for various publications, such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Interview and Vogue. Concurrently, Michalek began to delve into performance, installation and multi-disciplinary projects. Since giving up commercial photography in 1998, his work has been shown nationally and internationally with recent public art and solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Music Center in Los Angeles, Harvard University, Sadler's Wells Theatre, Trafalgar Square, Opera Bastille, Venice Biennale, Yale University, The Kitchen, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and at the Edinburgh Festival Summerhall with the Richard DeMarco Foundation. He also collaborated on the visual art component of two stage works with Peter Sellars: Kafka Fragments, presented as part of Carnegie Hall's 2005-2006 season, and St. François d'Assise, presented at the Salzburg Festival and Paris Opera. Additional film and video work for theater includes collaborations with The Tallis Scholars; John Malpede and Los Angeles Poverty Department, and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic in a project for The Brooklyn Museum's Music Off the Walls series. He is a visiting faculty member at Yale Divinity School, where he lectures on religion and the arts. Michalek lives in New York with his wife Wendy Whelan. Visit davidmichalek.net for more information.

Karen Young (Costume Designer) has designed costumes for numerous dance and video art projects and has recently been teaching at Rhode Island School of Design. Costume design for video art include Eve Sussman's 89 Seconds at Alcazar and The Rape of the Sabine Women, Matthew Barney's Cremaster 5, Toni Dove's Lucid Possession and David Michalek's Slow Dancing and Portraits in Dramatic Time. Recent design for performance includes projects with the Martha Graham Dance Company, American Ballet Theater, Keigwin + Co., Armitage Gone! Dance, Pam Tanowitz, Morphoses, Dusan Tynek, Third Rail Projects highly acclaimed Then She Fell and the upcoming Off-Broadway show Fighting Gravity. Visit karenyoungcostume.com for more information.

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