Vanity Fair is honoring his retirement with a 14 photo spread:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features...slideshow200806
The Spring issue of NYCB News includes a Q&A (by Joseph Guttridge) with Mr. Woetzel. A summary:
QUOTE
Q: [...]some of your earliest memories from when you started with the Company[...]?
A: My first Company class was very unusual, as it was the only time in all my experience that [NYCB Ballet Mistress] Rosemary Dunleavy taught class[...]. It was a great class!
I joined the Company the day after my [SAB] Workshop performance[...]. Jerry Robbins was making his new ballet, In Memory of... , and I ended up dancing one of the demi-soloist roles at the premiere, which was only a week after I joined the Company. It was a wonderful way to start.
Q: What have been some of your most memorable roles?
A: The roles I learned from Jerry were very special. He cared so much for every step of the process and invested so much energy in preparing his ballets. He made you feel a great amount of of responsibility. I remember learning the Boy in Brown in Dances at a Gathering--that was a very special experience. And watching Jerry demonstrate the part he created and danced himself in Fancy Free was amazing. That's the part I do, the rumba sailor. Of course it was daunting as well because even when he was older, he was uniquely effective at showing the character he was trying to create.
Q: Over the years, how has your dancing changed?
A: For me it's been about trying to keep progressing over the long term, while in the short term having as much impact and fun as I could with any one ballet. Being authentic to whichever part I am dancing has been the most important thing. It's never been enough for me just to be taught the steps and go out there and do it. I tend to study a ballet and its various versions and interpreters, and then work toward finding where I fit in and really discovering the ballet, in a sense. I have been engrossed with ballet my whole life, and even early on I couldn't get enough of the history. I needed to know everything. That's all been a part of me as a dancer and something I could draw on over the course of my career.
A: My first Company class was very unusual, as it was the only time in all my experience that [NYCB Ballet Mistress] Rosemary Dunleavy taught class[...]. It was a great class!
I joined the Company the day after my [SAB] Workshop performance[...]. Jerry Robbins was making his new ballet, In Memory of... , and I ended up dancing one of the demi-soloist roles at the premiere, which was only a week after I joined the Company. It was a wonderful way to start.
Q: What have been some of your most memorable roles?
A: The roles I learned from Jerry were very special. He cared so much for every step of the process and invested so much energy in preparing his ballets. He made you feel a great amount of of responsibility. I remember learning the Boy in Brown in Dances at a Gathering--that was a very special experience. And watching Jerry demonstrate the part he created and danced himself in Fancy Free was amazing. That's the part I do, the rumba sailor. Of course it was daunting as well because even when he was older, he was uniquely effective at showing the character he was trying to create.
Q: Over the years, how has your dancing changed?
A: For me it's been about trying to keep progressing over the long term, while in the short term having as much impact and fun as I could with any one ballet. Being authentic to whichever part I am dancing has been the most important thing. It's never been enough for me just to be taught the steps and go out there and do it. I tend to study a ballet and its various versions and interpreters, and then work toward finding where I fit in and really discovering the ballet, in a sense. I have been engrossed with ballet my whole life, and even early on I couldn't get enough of the history. I needed to know everything. That's all been a part of me as a dancer and something I could draw on over the course of my career.
He was also asked why he selected Balanchine's Prodigal Son ("...a ballet I love both to watch and to dance. It is an endlessly fulfilling role.") and Robbins' Fancy Free ("... a uniquely American aspect to it that has always felt particularly right to me.") for his farewell program. On Mr. B: "The Balanchine repertory has been the mainstay of my career." On Mr. R: "Jerry was the deciding factor in my joining City Ballet--the chance to work with a genius." As to what he was looking forward to, "So many things, but I will just say 'The future...' "
