Wendy Whelan and Brian Brooks perform "First Fall" (Photo by Christopher Duggan )

Looking at the program for “Restless Creature,” an evening-length dance work showing Saturday at Cal State Long Beach’s Carpenter Performing Arts Center, the collaborations between revered ballerina Wendy Whelan and four contemporary choreographers may appear different and divergent.

A dancer of international esteem, Whelan embodied Balanchine’s repertoire during her thirty year career as principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and originated feature roles in the ballets of the world’s most prominent choreographers, including William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Jorma Elo, Shen Wei, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon, and Alexei Ratmanksy. 

One of four collaborators on “Restless Creature”—Brian Brooks—is a modern dancer and choreographer, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the founder of the New York-based Brian Brooks Moving Company.   

Whelan and Brooks appear to come from radically different dance worlds—one classical, one contemporary—but for this dancer-choreographer duo, “Restless Creature” is an opportunity not only to collaborate, but also to take creative risks in unfamiliar territory. 

Conceived by Whelan as the next chapter in her dance career following her retirement from City Ballet, “Restless Creature” is a series of duets by MacArthur Fellow and founder of Abraham.In.Motion Kyle Abraham, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo and MOVE: the company’s Joshua Beamish. All four choreographers perform with Whelan.

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Developing the project three years ago, Whelan set out with the mission of creating deep dance studies with up-and-coming choreographers. Brooks was the first choreographer Whelan recruited for “Restless Creature.” 

For Whelan, the attraction to Brook’s choreography, which she first saw at the Fire Island Dance Festival in 2011, was not only immediate, but also rooted in her burgeoning interest for dance forms outside of classical ballet.

“It had nothing to do with the ballet world I came from,” said Whelan in a phone interview. “There was a lot of thought about gravity and weight, which is something I’ve always been curious about because I’ve always been considered so weightless. I knew that there was a lot in there for me to tap…person to person, artist to artist.”

Brooks, who describes his work as “modern, hybrid, Downtown Manhattan” was “skeptical” when Artistic Director Damian Woetzel commissioned him to work on a duet with Whelan, a year later, for the 2012 Vail International Dance Festival.  When Brooks began his first rehearsal with the prominent ballerina at the festival he was “very intimidated.”  

“I was scared to even touch her,” said Brooks over the phone.  “I was nervous to make that first touch of even my hand to her shoulder.”

That first encounter has since evolved into “First Fall,” the fourth duet in “Restless Creature’s” program. Now on a national tour, dancing “First Fall” has become a “ritual” with familiar, vibrant cadences and intricate, entangling phrasing.      

“We play with call & response with each other. So rather than just going on the movement…I wait for her to grab my hand to give it the slightest tug before I start to rotate and spiral and wrap behind her lap. I wait to feel her impulse,” said Brooks. “So there’s something really alive and present with the piece and our relationship.”

Whelan describes dancing with Brooks as a “tangle” that unravels into an “incredibly peaceful surrender.”

“There’s kind of a spirituality in it that I find... I really feel like I become this kind of floating angel.”

Working on “Restless Creature” has had a complementary effect on Brooks and Whelan, who’ve both described the collaboration as a transformative experience. For Brooks, dancing with Whelan has encouraged him to think less about the choreography and embrace the movement.

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“I learned to let go of my choreographer side and be a dancer. I’m actually living in the present moment and really fighting those urges of the mind to anticipate what’s coming up in the next three seconds—it’s almost like a meditation.”

Whelan understands the process somatically, akin to removing a “ballet skin” and discovering a new physicality, one that had been previously hidden.  

“Saying goodbye to that really essential part of my life of being a ballerina was painful,” said Whelan speaking of her retirement from ballet. “It really did physically feel like I was pulling myself out of a certain kind of body to find this other kind of body that lives within it.” 

In some ways, however, the choreographic kinship of Brooks and Whelan is beyond verbal expression. 

“Deep down, I just wanted that connection with the choreographer… that sacred conversation that there are no words for,” said Whelan. “I just feel lucky to have that connection to him.”

“Restless Creature” is playing at the CSULB Carpenter Performing Arts Center (6200 East Atherton Street, Long Beach) this Saturday, February 7. For show & ticket information visit CarpenterArts.org 

Contact Contributor Christina Campodonico here.

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