Ashley Wheater, a former Joffrey Ballet dancer and currently assistant to San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson, has been named the new artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet. Wheater replaces artistic director emeritus Gerald Arpino, 84, who co-founded the company with the late Robert Joffrey in 1956. Joffrey died in 1988.Finding a replacement for Arpino was the most important decision facing it since the company moved from New York to Chicago (which breathed new life into the troupe after it lost its residency at the LA Music Center). Wheater, 48, was born in Scotland and trained at the Royal Ballet School. He began his career with the Royal Ballet and danced leading roles as a member of the London Festival Ballet, the Australia Ballet, the Joffrey (1985-1989) and San Francisco Ballet. He is not a choreographer, unlike Arpino, whose ballets made up more than one-third of the company’s repertory. That means the company, which carved out a reputation as a distinctly American troupe, will have to seek ballets from outside its new headquarters.
