How Damian Woetzel jeté-ed his way from ballet phenom to head of The Juilliard School

Damian Woetzel [00:00:04] That idea of light hitting you on a stage...I remember just going, 'gotcha, right.' I always felt like on stage there was this light to be found. 

Sophie Bearman [00:00:26] This is Life In Seven Songs. From The San Francisco Standard, I'm Sophie Bearman. This week, I am speaking with Damian Woetzel, who's considered to be one of the foremost ballet dancers of his time. Even if you don't know much about ballet, you probably have an understanding of how incredibly difficult it is. It's highly technical, demands precision, perfection, and control. A study once ranked ballet the most physically and mentally demanding activity one can do, followed by bullfighting. So it's no surprise Damien's motto is, "too much is never enough." During his storied 20-plus year career as a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, he earned a master's degree in public administration from Harvard—while still dancing. After retiring from the stage, he served on President Barack Obama's committee on the arts and humanities, among many other arts leadership roles. And he is currently the president of the world's most prestigious performing arts conservatory, The Juilliard School. Damien Woetzel, thank you for coming on the show. 

Damian Woetzel [00:01:28] Thanks, Sophie, great to be with you. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:30] Did you know that about bullfighting? 

Damian Woetzel [00:01:31] I did not, but I'm going to carry that with me. That's a toreador. Great. Okay! 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:38] There you go. So Damian, so many kids grow up wanting to be dancers. But, you know, this is a dream that you actually made a reality. So I'm curious, is there a moment that you knew it was possible? 

Damian Woetzel [00:01:51] Yes. So I started when I was four, but when I say started, I didn't know what I was doing. I went to dance lessons in my town outside Boston. Then I kind of remember maybe around six or seven, learning what a particular step was. And I do remember that. It was a tour jeté. 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:10] What is that? 

Damian Woetzel [00:02:11] Tour jete is a jump where you propel one leg up in the air and you turn a half revolution and the other leg kind of elevates then. You have to be pretty coordinated to do it. And I sort of remember that, learning how to do that, okay. And then there was a moment where for whatever reason I ended up going and auditioning for the Nutcracker in Boston with the Boston Ballet, which was an annual holiday tradition. And that was when I got on stage, I guess is what happened. That was the moment, first moment one was like, 'wow, I love this.' And then I did that for a long time, Nutcrackers every year. And then at a certain point when I was 11, I started spending a little more time dancing and suddenly I was like 'wow,' it was an addiction. I loved it. And I started doing more and more and more. And so one night I was waiting to get picked up in the Boston Ballet. And there was this guy there. His name was Jimmy Capp. And Jimmy was the—what's called the regisseur. He was the one who like taught the ballets to the dancers in the Boston Ballet. And he knew me from the Nutcracker and other productions where kids were in. And so he started talking to me and he said, 'why don't we work on your turns?' And he gave me an exercise that I did in the lobby on the carpet in the Boston Ballet. In the course of the time I was waiting for my ride, I went from being able to do like an okay double pirouette to being able do five or six. And it was literally just like, boom, it was crazy. I discovered that I could turn. That was the moment when I kind of thought, oh, this is really something. And it just, from that moment at 11, I was like, I'm going to be a dancer. 

Sophie Bearman [00:03:46] Well, let's talk about your first song that you chose by Philip Glass. And the connection here is it's a much later song, but you were listening to Philip Glass as a child as well, which is pretty advanced, you know, to be listening to—I know I wasn't, so tell me about that choice. 

Damian Woetzel [00:04:02] Well, I remember my brother, who was a serious classical guitarist—I played the flute, I also played the guitar, he also played piano—got into Philip's music and he had this famous album, Glassworks, and he would play it quite a lot. And so I was familiar with Glass through that. And then when I got into New York City Ballet in 1985, Jerome Robbins was one of the leaders and he was a creative force. He was, you know, famous from Broadway, you know, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof and all these things, but a giant in ballet and had recently made a ballet called Glass Pieces, which included some of those things from Glassworks. It was my first year in the company and there I was in the middle of it all in Glass Pieces. Cut ahead, I start to love Philip's music much more and more and more and get into it. So the song. Knee Play Five, which is more than a song, it's a piece, and it's got, there's narration, and there's the sense of theater within it... 

Damian Woetzel [00:05:27] It's just, it's gorgeous. It has, you know, so many layers within it, right? That's what contributes to making that world. These are the days. Just contemplate that as you listen to it and you just think these are the day and you think about the layers of a lifetime that Philip kind of makes happen in that and the counting and the story. Two lovers on a park bench. 

Sophie Bearman [00:05:49] So you said your brother, he's the one who kind of turned you on to Philip Glass as a kid. Tell me more about your childhood. 

Damian Woetzel [00:05:56] Oh, complicated, very complicated. So my father was a professor. My mother had worked for UNICEF. My family split up when I was probably six, they got divorced. My mom went back to UNICEF, was a, you know, a senior person there stationed all around the world for many years. My father had a partner, he was gay. And like I said, complicated. My brother and I went to private school for a year or two in the middle of the divorce. There was all kinds of reason to kind of escape into things. And I think that that's not uncommon in the arts in a way. And dance was definitely the place I found kind of a family in some ways. 

Sophie Bearman [00:06:39] I think that there are a lot of gender stereotypes in ballet. You know, you might picture a little ballerina before a boy dancing. And I'm curious, what was your experience like as a boy? Take me back to five, six, seven, and then beyond. 

Damian Woetzel [00:06:53] You know, in the beginning, you know there literally was free class for boys on Saturday mornings. It's free for boys because there weren't enough when I was in that class. When I got to the next stage, like the 11 year old stage I was in the more advanced—I'd started to move forward. And then I was like one of two boys in a class of like 30 or 35 young women. But thinking about what it was like as a boy. Let's be honest, not smiled upon as a choice. Thought to be effeminate, lots of bigoted or just ignorant comments that I went through and different types of bullying and different stuff. I mean, junior high was the mean years. They just are. Lots of name calling, you know, everything from "twinkle toes" to other stuff like that. Definitely lots of homophobic type things that were really just awful. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:47] Were you, when you were hearing those just awful homophobic insults, were you aware of your father's sexuality at the time? 

Damian Woetzel [00:07:54] Yeah. So that was, you know, of course the nuance in that is that the insult that they thought was an insult, wasn't an insult to me. I was just, like, you just don't know anything and you're just being, you know, a bigot. And so that was not easy, but also defining in a way because it would have been easier not to dance and it was a choice. Like, you, I think I'm going to do this. And I really cared enough to do it. And then I was in eighth grade science one day. And unaccountably, our science teacher put up on the projector a Life Magazine picture of Edward Villella doing the Prodigal SON. So Edward Villella was one of the great pioneers of dance in America. I used to say he kind of made it safe for male dancers in America. He was a Golden Gloves boxer or something, he was this tough guy, and there he was flying through the air in a part that I ended up dancing. And everybody was like, looked at me, they were like, is that what you do? And I was like 'absolutely, that's exactly what I do.' And it was key, honestly. It really changed the dynamic a little bit because nobody understood what I was doing. And so years later, I know Mr. Villela. He's this extraordinary hero, but he intruded into my eighth grade science class on the projector to great effect. 

Sophie Bearman [00:09:21] So I want to talk about the music. Another song you chose is We Are the World, and this takes us to 1984. So set the stage. What's going on? 

Damian Woetzel [00:09:30] All right, so by then I've moved to New York. Studying at the School of American Ballet, which at that point is in Juilliard where I'm talking to you from today. I'm just loving every minute of it. It's just everything I dreamed of and it's great. Contrasting with the world, 1984—famine in Africa is raging and that winter Band Aid is put together by Bob Geldof and it is this song featuring mostly British rock stars, pop stars to raise money. And shortly thereafter, in early 85 comes We Are the World, which is sort of America's version of that. Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and others putting that together. At the same time, there's things like the AIDS crisis is just going exponential at that point, and it's affecting the arts community very deeply all around me. I remember that feeling of like, well, artists are doing things, artists are stepping forward, artists are a part of it. And City Ballet programs We Are The World as a dance on opening night of New York City Ballet season in April of 1985. And they need extra guys. And so I get to go and be in We Are The World. And that's my very first performance on that stage at Lincoln Center with New York City Ballet. 

Damian Woetzel [00:11:10] Oh my God, so good. It's so good, it was such an entryway to so many things. The idea of artists playing a role, artists stepping forward to use their art, essentially for good. This intersection for me with my career and a beginning and just that moment in time. 

Sophie Bearman [00:11:30] Okay, next song is right around this time that you're listening to More Than This by Roxy Music. Tell me about that.

Damian Woetzel [00:11:38] In between classes, I used to go and hang out in Sheeps Meadow with lots of other people and friends from the school, people I'd meet. And I remember I had my early walkman and I had Roxy Music on it. And I just so clearly remember sitting in the middle of Sheeps Meadow on the most beautiful day and just scanning that skyline that you can really see from there, you know, and just thinking this is the most idyllic, wonderful situation. And I love the song and that kind of, that vibe was just really special. 

Damian Woetzel [00:12:25] It just makes me, yeah, how we danced was so very specific. You know, you kind of go left and then right. And, you know, I think Courtney Cox does it in that Springsteen video where he drags her up on stage. Is it Dancing in the Dark? 'Even if we're just dancing in the dark.' Oh my God, so good. Yeah, that was sort of the early mid eighties kind of vibe dance. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:45] So you then joined the New York City Ballet, and you were just a teenager, right? You had just turned 18?

Damian Woetzel [00:12:52] Right after, yeah, it was dreamy. So we had our SAB graduation performance and then two days later I went and joined New York City ballet, got my contract and the first ballets I did were Jerome Robbins and one of them was the world premiere of that season, a ballet called "In Memory of..." And there were three angels in it and lo and behold, day before, one of the angels got injured and I got thrown in. And I was in my first week in the company. And it was for the gala, you know, the fundraising night as well. So it's like, I got to go to the party and everybody was like in black tie and it crazy, actually. So that was my first week in the company was—

Sophie Bearman [00:13:35] —what an incredible debut. 

Damian Woetzel [00:13:36] Yeah, it was something. And then life kind of just really took off. It was like running away and joining the circus. 

Sophie Bearman [00:13:43] Next song you chose, Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. Tell me about that. 

Damian Woetzel [00:13:48] God, I just remember this in the mid eighties as pure beauty as always. The first time I heard her voice was with this song. And I had bought my first car. And so that's what I associated with it. It wasn't particularly fast, but it was a green Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and so it was an antique, sort of. And I remember driving it in Saratoga Springs where City Ballet had summer seasons, listening to Fast Car. I actually remember that very much. I remember, like, in my car feeling, I don't know, I was 20...It's like feeling 20. 

Sophie Bearman [00:14:39] When I hear Fast Car, I think about sort of escaping overbearing circumstances and, you know, where we come from in life and where we can go and dreams. 

Damian Woetzel [00:14:51] Definitely. I was having all of that as well in different ways. I mean, I was still in the corps de ballet. So I joined at 18 and I became a principal dancer at 22. So between all that, there's all this feeling of kind of angst. Am I doing the right thing? How is this going? I always had enough food on my plate to know that things were going in the right direction, but was it? And how is this gonna work out? And I'm surrounded by all my friends who are the same boat, everybody is kind of like, is this going to work? I used to chart like, oh, what if I had gone to college? I guess I'd be graduating next year. Then it was like, then suddenly it's like I would have graduated 20 years ago. But there were so many people who, you know, we were all growing up at the same time in different ways and that we had our soundtracks. 

Sophie Bearman [00:15:38] It's time for a quick break. When we come back, we'll meet the two people who changed Damian's life. Stay with us. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:01] Who made the biggest impression on you? Any mentors or teachers? 

Damian Woetzel [00:16:05] Oh, wow. So the teacher who I think at that time in particular, and I still go back to it all the time now, that really changed how I thought was—his name was Stanley Williams. And he really was kind of evolutionary in dance. It went to a place that was beyond, kind of, if you were going to be pejorative about it, cheap effects, to what sophistication could be. I worked for a while just to really even be taken seriously by him. I had to kind of let go of a lot. I was like trying to do big things and big jumps and lots of turns and Stanley would kind of look at me and he'd kind of laugh and he would say, okay. And it was just so clear that there was something more to be had. The goal was how soft you could land, how clean you could do something. You just thought this is not a—this is something else. It was like church. 

Sophie Bearman [00:17:05] You also met your future wife in class, right? 

Damian Woetzel [00:17:09] Yes, Heather Watts, who I knew first seeing her on the stage and then in class, certainly in Stanley's class, she would take that class too. And then we were in the company together. 

Sophie Bearman [00:17:20] What impression did you have when you saw her? 

Damian Woetzel [00:17:22] Oh, gosh, you know, she was so beautiful and smart. And she was leading kind of the dancer's response to AIDS. I remember very clearly that she was deeply involved in searching for justice in that area, as well as just being someone that I looked at as a extraordinary person. And then that incubated over time and later on became much more. 

Sophie Bearman [00:17:49] So you chose a song to represent your wife and your love of her. 

Damian Woetzel [00:17:53] Oh yeah. 

Sophie Bearman [00:17:53] Tom Waits. So what did you choose? 

Damian Woetzel [00:17:56] I chose to Tom Traubert's Blues, which—she introduced me to Waits and so many others that were like on her playlist, and it opened up a whole other sound world in different ways. I don't know. When I think about Waits, I think of the worlds that he created. I guess there's a theme there. I'm always thinking about the worlds are created in some way, that carnivally kind of scene that he describes so poetically and the juxtaposition of words and then just the music itself is so beautiful and I think about it so romantically because of Heather. 

Damian Woetzel [00:18:58] Oh my God, come on. So good. 

Sophie Bearman [00:19:02] I love watching you listen to all the music we've played. You just sort of go somewhere, you know, you're really transported. 

Damian Woetzel [00:19:09] Well, that's the thing about music. You know, it really does take you there. It brings you back to certain moments, but also the best music just continues out. It's not specific totally. It always has, there's always more. And just listening to Mr. Waits. Wow. That's crazy. So good. 

Sophie Bearman [00:19:27] Damian, can you describe being on stage? Like, what's the most thrilling part? What kept you pursuing this, frankly, incredibly difficult job and dream? 

Damian Woetzel [00:19:38] Well, I guess the dirty secret is I didn't think it was that hard. I loved to dance. I was really fortunate that I did dance because I was very suited to it. Physically rarely had any injuries. I just loved it. And it felt like what I was made to do in so many different ways. 

Sophie Bearman [00:19:55] So your toes are not like broken or bruised? 

Damian Woetzel [00:19:58] No, I got one. I tripped once going on stage. It was a hilarious, terrible kind of stupid moment. I switched shoes for some reason. I used to wear canvas ballet shoes. I wore leather. And as I entered, I stubbed my toe and I thought, damn, and I said more than damn, I must've broken my toe. I figured I did because it was, like, not good. And I turned around. So I exited as gracefully as I could thinking, okay, we're gonna have to figure out what happens here. And I got back in the wing and I was like, actually, I think I'm okay. So I kind of checked myself and then went back out, you know, and it was like ridiculous when those kind of things happen, which they do. So by the time I was back on stage, the people who were watching the show to cover, like, they had come backstage and then, "oh, he's back out on stage? Is he out? Is he hurt? Is he not?" Anyway, I got through it. And of course, the next day it hurt like hell. And I probably took that show off, but then I came back and I was fine. Of course, now it hurts. It's still there. I like got some brutal scar tissue from it. But in the moment, I was more like that where I thought, did I hurt myself? And I'd be like, no, I'm okay. And I go back out. So I was pretty lucky that way. So what I felt like on stage was natural and organic. I loved flying around and the wind in the hair type feeling and becoming more and more natural as I went on. I loved the drama of it. And probably in retrospect, when I think back, people say to me, do you miss dancing? I say, I miss certain parts of it a little bit, but I actually miss dancing with people. That was so fun. You know, you don't get to do that in life, which you get to kind of live out on stage. It's that sense of connection with people that I miss. 

Sophie Bearman [00:21:36] I said this in the intro, the saying "too much is never enough." Where does that come from? 

Damian Woetzel [00:21:43] Good question. So when you get into New York City Ballet, you get a theater case that's meant to be your tour case that when you go on tour, you put it outside your dressing room, it gets picked up and you see it in the next spot and you put your shoes in it and your stuff. So it lives with you. So mine lived with me for 23 years at New York City Ballet and it'd be in my dressing room. And early on, I don't know where it came from, but there was a magazine that had a MTV ad. That said, and it was a tear out, and it said, "too much is never enough," and there was like an electric guitar or something. And I taped that in my theater case sometime in the mid 1980s, and it's still there, sitting in my basement. So that's where it comes from. And it definitely was how I looked at things because I did like to do a lot. And when I joined New York City Ballet, our seasons were nine weeks in the spring, eight shows a week. And I wanted to do them all. And in those shows, there'd usually be three ballets and I was much happier doing two or three than I was doing one. So I always kind of thought it was my thing and I liked the idea of doing more, but I tended to do better when I did a lot. 

Sophie Bearman [00:22:58] So we're jumping forward a lot now. So forgive me, because I know we have to skip a lot of life. But another example of too much is never enough...you know, while still dancing, you got a master's in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. So what was that about? 

Damian Woetzel [00:23:13] I became the principal dancer at City Ballet and my career was going in the direction I dreamt of and I was getting to do a lot of different things. And I also started directing, choreographing and I kind of came back around to what my father and mother did, which was more kind of a art in society approach to things and being an artist who would go to things and talk about art in the context of other things. The "We are the world" kind of in my mind, thinking about that, where is the art in this conversation? And that was something that kind of grew steadily in different ways. At one point, I got invited to be a part of a young leaders group for US and China. And I was the artist with a guy from China who I actually still work with today was the counterpart. And on one of those, the politician was a state senator from Arizona at that time, that was Gabby Giffords. And she sat on the bus with me going to dinner, and started asking me questions about what are you going to do when you retire. And I said, I'd love to go to school more formally, but I don't think I'll have the opportunity or time. And she said, well, you know, there's this one program you should look at. And it was a master's in public administration, mid-career at the Kennedy School at Harvard. I went home and I looked it up and sure enough, it sounded inviting and nowhere did it say that you needed a BA. And so it actually happened. So I ended up going to the Kennedy School while I was still dancing, got an MPA. It just put me in a different place mentally, as well as having that credit and the people I met, and then this opened a new state of ambition to have an impact in the next part of my life. 

Sophie Bearman [00:24:52] So let's talk about that impact because you've certainly had one. 

Damian Woetzel [00:24:55] So that Kennedy School experience kind of drove me forward into a whole range of things that were about how art was going to be important for public good. And part of that manifested in the Obama campaign, and then I ended up joining his Committee on Arts and Humanities once he became president. It was about arts education being pivotal to education writ large. That was a huge part of my life for about eight years. I'm working on something called Turnaround Arts, which was about turning around failing schools with art as a key component. So 10 years after I retired in 2008, all of this became a culminating kind of ambition, if you will, when I became the president of Juilliard, where it is about the education, it is about global reach and about ambition for how art is gonna affect society. It's about how the creative forces at Juilliard actually populate all the theaters and have all the influences over generations that it can change the world and that art truly is a public good. 

Sophie Bearman [00:25:57] So here you are, you're at Juilliard, and you've been shaping this incredible next generation of young artists. And you were kind of an unconventional choice, right? The first dancer to become the president at Juilliard. 

Damian Woetzel [00:26:08] Yeah, Juilliard actually is a school of music first, then it added dance, then it added drama. To me, it's like, you know, my dance career was so intertwined with music and my life has been so intertwined with music. My work as a director and choreographer alongside people like Yo-Yo or Caroline Shaw or others has always been. So to me, in so many ways, it's been the focus of my entire life, what we do here. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:34] You mentioned Caroline Shaw and you chose a song from her... "Other song," it's called. Why'd you choose it?

Damian Woetzel [00:26:41] Well, she's just dreamy. The music itself is all about possibility. It just has no end. Everything goes on into the world. And she's someone I've gotten to work with for about a decade now, commissioning her for music, for dances. And I remember asking her, why is it that I know your music instantly? And she said, Damian, it's very old. She's got a sense of continuum that, you know, she uses harmonies that are from so many centuries ago, but then she takes them where she takes them. She's a great musician. She sings, she plays stringed instruments of various kinds. She plays piano and synthesizer. So I love her music. I love her. I think she's extraordinary. 

Damian Woetzel [00:27:22] So much of Caroline's music has to do with architecture in a sense. It's about the rise of things and you hear it, the repetitive rise, the repetitive rise which is, you know, throughout music, but she has her own way of doing it. I mean, it's like, you know, the Nutcracker, right? Tchaikovsky. It's been in my life since I was seven. Da da da da, da da da. Over and over again. Da da da. Caroline tends to go up. And there's a moment in that, in Other Song, which sounds like a rocket lifting off that just, I play it in my office here sometimes and I just crank it. And it's just so great. I just like feel like the building is gonna take off. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:20] So your last song, Jon Batiste's FREEDOM, and Jon Batiste is another friend of yours, and there's a music video that goes with this song. Jon steps out of the car, and he leads this phenomenal dance through the streets, and everyone comes together, which sort of feels like full circle with what you've worked to build as well in your career. So why'd you choose this one? 

Damian Woetzel [00:28:41] I think it's that spirit you just described, actually. So Jon just defies genre. He takes an incredible technique as a pianist. And then his voice, though, is all about community. It's that that spirit of what we can do together that he shares with Yo-Yo and others that I work with. But it's on a level that is like that willingness to engage. So, this album really was a pandemic-era album that came out in different kind of iterations. But I chose this because it expresses the pure joy that he has to draw people together in this mode. I've heard him sing it live several, many times that just gets everybody off their feet as he demands, actually. He says, basically, when there's music like this, you have to get up. And it's an invitation to be a part of the world. I remember in the pandemic, he would do these Sunday afternoon dance parties on Instagram, but it was just, you could just join Jon's channel, and he would invite a friend to join in the—you know, you can do that on Instagram—and he would join people from all around the world in this dance party. And he was like, show me your moves. And he would be doing them and he'd be playing FREEDOM or other songs from that album. And it was such a balm, in a way, and it was just, what a way to spend your time. I've told him recently, I said, you gotta do it again. You gotta do a reprise every now and again on a Sunday afternoon. But I think that video is something that, you know, it brings us to a place we need to go to. It's waiting in the back of our minds, that sense of possibility. 

Sophie Bearman [00:30:34] Well, you've done some amazing work. How would you like to be remembered? How would summarize your legacy? 

Damian Woetzel [00:30:40] Wow, that's a big one. I think if you start out thinking that way, you probably never get there, but I would like to think that so much of what I do is about next steps for something, usually for people in some way. Like, what would be a good next step for this? Or how do we put these two people, or these four people, or these 12 people together? And the work that I've gotten to do has been all about what other people do. There was moments when I was by myself on the stage, but I didn't get there by myself. I was standing on Stanley's and everybody else's shoulder who got me there. My wife, Heather, every idea comes from her in every possible way about the what if and that aesthetic of like, what's possible. And also that idea that change is real. We talked about family. So I'll tell you, my brother transitioned two years ago. My brother's now my sister. And there's like a sense of like wow, the world is extraordinary. How do we react to it? How do we further things? How do we have a sense of adaptability, resilience, and opportunity at all times in different ways to make a next step? And I think if there's an answer to your question, it's somewhere in there. 

Sophie Bearman [00:31:55] Damian, thank you so, so much for your time. This has been a real pleasure. 

Damian Woetzel [00:31:59] Thanks Sophie. Great to be with you. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:26] Life in Seven Songs is a production from The San Francisco Standard. If you liked this episode, check out the one with Rhodessa Jones, another performer who found her home on the stage. Our senior producer is Jasmyn Morris. Producers are Michelle Lanz, who also mixes the show, and Tessa Kramer. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler, and Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. Executive producers are Griffin Gaffney, Jon Steinberg, and me. As always, you can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. I'm Sophie Bearman, thank you for listening and see you next time.