Damian Woetzel is the seventh president of The Juilliard School, where he is championing excellence rooted in creativity and inclusion, and prioritizing affordability and access to the highest level of artistic education. Since retiring in 2008 from a 20-year career as a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, Woetzel has taken on roles in arts leadership including artistic director of the Vail Dance Festival since 2007 and director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program (2011-18). As an independent director, choreographer, and producer, his recent projects include DEMO at the Kennedy Center; Spaces by Wynton Marsalis for Jazz at Lincoln Center; Kennedy Center Honors tributes to Natalia Makarova, Patricia McBride, and Carmen de Lavallade; two Turnaround Arts performances at the White House and the first performance of the White House Dance Series hosted by Michelle Obama. Woetzel has collaborated on numerous initiatives with Yo-Yo Ma, including the Silk Road Connect program in the New York City public schools. In 2009, Woetzel became the founding director of the Jerome Robbins Foundation’s New Essential Works (NEW) Program, which over five years initiated grants to support new dance works in the wake of the financial crisis. President Obama appointed Woetzel to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2009, and he served throughout the Obama administration. Woetzel holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School. He received the 2015 Harvard Arts Medal and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
