Dance in Film · 2016
Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan (2016)
Follows New York City Ballet principal Wendy Whelan as she transitions from classical ballet to contemporary collaborative work.
Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan is a 2016 dance documentary centred on Ballet. For dancers, it's a chance to see the style performed on screen — the phrasing, partnering, and musicality that the same dances carry onto a real floor.
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Dance styles featured
Where to watch: Streaming (various)
Trailer
Official trailer.
The dance sequences in Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
13 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
After the Rain farewell pas de deux
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Craig Hall · Choreography Christopher Wheeldon
Whelan projecting forward like a ship's figurehead from Craig Hall's support.
With her hair loose and feet bare, Whelan folds and unfolds against Craig Hall through slow descents, low lifts, and the prow-like forward suspension. The sparse pink-and-gray duet removes pointe-shoe armor at the moment the documentary asks what remains after a ballerina's institutional identity.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
By 2 With & From farewell premiere
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Tyler Angle; Craig Hall · Choreography Christopher Wheeldon; Alexei Ratmansky
Whelan raised above Angle and Hall at the end of the work made for her departure.
Wheeldon and Ratmansky place Whelan between Tyler Angle and Craig Hall, two partners who physically embody the knowledge she says passes from one dancer to the next. The final lift sends her above both men facing forward, giving the farewell a future-directed last image instead of an exit pose.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Concerto DSCH farewell adagio
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Tyler Angle · Choreography Alexei Ratmansky
Whelan and Tyler Angle suspended in the second movement while six dancers keep the surrounding picture alive.
Ratmansky's adagio places Whelan with Tyler Angle inside Shostakovich's clear piano theme and a quiet supporting sextet. Their sustained partnering lets the documentary show an artist held within a company ensemble even as she prepares to leave it.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Conditional Sentences duet
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Joshua Beamish · Choreography Joshua Beamish
Whelan and Beamish answering each small provocation with another precisely shaped challenge.
Beamish turns the duet into flirtatious one-upmanship as he and Whelan compete, imitate, and admire one another from changing distances. Tiny retaliatory gestures make the passage feel like a barbed conversation conducted without pointe shoes.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Dances at a Gathering farewell excerpt
Neoclassical BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan · Choreography Jerome Robbins
Whelan's apricot-clad girl looking startlingly youthful during her last NYCB program.
In apricot, Whelan prances through Robbins's excerpt and takes playful chances that contradict the hard, valedictory image an audience might expect. The youthful attack turns a farewell slot into remembered company life rather than a solemn museum piece.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Ego et Tu duet
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Alejandro Cerrudo · Choreography Alejandro Cerrudo
Two bodies continuously folding, unfolding, and renegotiating the center of their duet.
Cerrudo makes Whelan and himself fold and scroll around one another, repeatedly changing which torso seems to support the knot. Those twisting exchanges counterpoint her move from a ranked ballet company into a partnership she chose.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
First Fall duet
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Brian Brooks · Choreography Brian Brooks
Whelan falling again and again into Brooks's nearly faceless black-clad support.
Brooks, dressed in black, repeatedly becomes the surface from which Whelan rises and toward which she drops. Each caught descent converts her post-surgery fear of bodily failure into an exact test of timing and shared weight.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
La Sonnambula farewell excerpt
Neoclassical BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Robert Fairchild · Choreography George Balanchine
The sleepwalker lifting Robert Fairchild after gliding across the stage on whispering bourrées.
At the farewell, Whelan's sleepwalker skims through needle-fine bourrées before she bends to cradle Robert Fairchild in her arms. That reversal—her carrying him—makes the sold-out house's collective breath part of the ballet's eerie spell.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Louisville childhood and student-era dance archive
Classical BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan
Home-movie Wendy dancing years before the NYCB stage becomes the center of her life.
The film's family footage lets a very young Whelan occupy the floor before the adult interviews explain what that impulse became. Cutting from Louisville childhood dancing toward adolescent New York images turns the archive into the first physical proof of the career she fears losing.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
NYCB career repertory montage
Danced by Wendy Whelan
The rapid change from Agon's tensile shapes to The Cage's predator and Herman Schmerman's velocity.
A career reel places Whelan inside Glass Pieces, Agon, The Cage, and Wheeldon and Forsythe repertory instead of treating thirty NYCB years as a résumé spoken aloud. The switch from Balanchine geometry to Robbins menace and Herman Schmerman's speed makes her adaptability legible in moving bodies rather than a list of titles.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Pictures at an Exhibition late-career passage
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Tyler Angle · Choreography Alexei Ratmansky
Whelan and Tyler Angle climbing through a projected field of Kandinsky color studies.
Kandinsky's concentric-color projection surrounds Whelan and Tyler Angle's ascent-filled passage, so the backdrop keeps rearranging the space they cross. Images of flight inside Ratmansky's ten-dancer structure make this late-career premiere read as expansion rather than retreat.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
The Serpent and the Smoke duet
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Kyle Abraham · Choreography Kyle Abraham
Whelan loosening into a strange new creature as Abraham's torso ripples beside her.
Abraham sends ripples across his shoulders and torso while Whelan answers with loping runs and amoeba-like articulations that strip away her habitual vertical carriage. Her slow unwinding into another creature makes career transition visible before the film says it aloud.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
This Bitter Earth post-surgery return
Contemporary BalletDanced by Wendy Whelan; Tyler Angle · Choreography Christopher Wheeldon
Whelan sitting wordless in her dressing room after dancing back onto the NYCB stage.
Returning to NYCB after hip surgery, Whelan enters Wheeldon's pas de deux with Tyler Angle to Dinah Washington and Max Richter instead of treating recovery as a medical milestone alone. The film's silent dressing-room aftermath lets the physical return keep reverberating after the last supported phrase.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 90-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
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