There are a lot of possibilities I'm looking at for the future, but I'm very insistent on not limiting myself.
Damian Woetzel
In schools giving students a full education, not to create great artists but about the right to have full expression and imagination and creativity, along with an acknowledgement that everybody learns differently. You try and you fail and you try again. All those skills are useful in the workplace, too.
Where a city is only focused on one aspect, it becomes a city without a soul, not a city people want to live in.
It's a false proposition that we have to take the arts away to fund something else.
When I was about 12, I was studying Chinese and ballet with my brother, and one morning Jonathan said to me, 'I don't think I'm going to go to ballet class anymore,' and I looked at him and said, 'You know, I don't think I'm going to go to Chinese class anymore.'
As a dancer running around the world, I always questioned whether that's what I wanted to do.
Fulfilling your mission is one thing; vision is another, and having a commitment to something leads you to do better work.
It's all about progression, not getting stuck and about having aspirations, which can lead you to do more and not just be satisfied. I was always that way about my dancing, and that's how I am about whatever it is I tend to pursue.
The Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail is unlike any other performance venue in the world, set with mountains and trees as a backdrop.
I have long been interested in exploring and advancing the valuable relationships between the arts and society.
I frequently go to the ballet, but I don't miss it in the sense that I wish I were still dancing.
I last went to a gym when I was a teenager to make sure I could lift ballerinas.
If I see somebody dancing really well, it can make me want to dance. Or it could be the music. But perhaps the thing I miss the most is that when you're dancing, everyday concerns vanish. It's a unique world.
I am always looking for options that yield something unexpected.
That's how you live. You participate. You take risks.
I strive to create new opportunities in terms of partnerships and new works being presented and things you haven't seen anywhere else. Also to help you see old things in ways you haven't seen them before.
Dance should mean something to you.
I like that feeling of letting loose, of not planning every step. The best performances are the ones that you just let happen.
The retirement timing is always a tricky thing for a dancer. I think it's different for everyone. How you say goodbye to the thing you have really focused on that much is a tough one. I've always intended to leave in good shape, to exit on a high note.
I'm going to do some consulting for nonprofits and arts agencies. These are areas I'm interested in that didn't come directly out of Harvard, but certainly I started looking at things in a different manner.
My whole life was geared toward being a highly educated person.
We say arts education is good for general education, but that's not the point. The arts are what great nations are remembered for. They are a mirror.
The chance to work on Broadway choreography as opposed to having to deliver Broadway choreography can be two distinct things.
I traveled so much to dance that I feel a part of many places, but New York is where I spent most of my life and where my career has been - it's the place where I exist.
Dancing was one of the hobbies my brother and I had when we were kids, and dance ended up being the one that stuck. I dropped everything else until that was what was left in the end.
The challenge is maintaining your interest over a long career, as opposed to pushing hard with no longevity. I'm surprised that I've been able to dance as long as I have.
I haven't fallen that much, but when I have, it's usually in the attempt to do something worthwhile. As for recovery, you just have to get up!
The last time I had to make a career decision, I was 17. I could have gone to Ballet Theatre or National Ballet of Canada. There were options. But as I became exposed to the Robbins repertoire, I realized that there was a living genius in the house.
I guess I was phenomenally lucky that I was introduced to dancing because I'm suited to it. It would be very weird if you had this natural ability for something and you never discovered it. It must happen all the time.
I want to go into science class and awaken that spark that makes learning possible.
