Vail Dance Festival has become “a melting pot for all things dance”
When Damian Woetzel became artistic director of the Vail Dance Festival 11 years ago, he had a hope to make it more than just another summer festival. He wanted to form a creative community.
Well-known dancers make the summer festival rounds, carrying their costumes and music, doing their dance, picking up a check and moving on. Woetzel aspired to something more.
“Why come to Vail and dance at 8,000 feet?” he asked.
The reason is the lure of “creative collaboration,” said Woetzel, who retired as a New York City Ballet principal dancer in 2008. It was the promise of something new, something unexpected for the artists and for the audiences, as well.
Woetzel’s hope is now a reality as the festival has a core of regular artists — from soft-shoe vaudevillian Bill Irwin to ballerina Tiler
Peck to Memphis street jooker Lil Buck to tap-dancing dynamo Michelle Dorrance.
“This is the collaborative dream getting everybody in one place and informing each other,” Woetzel said. “It feeds the audience, the audience gets to see something unique.”
Audience attendance is up 40 percent in the last six years, reaching more than 22,000 in 2016. “It has become a melting pot for all things dance,” said Mike Imhof, the festival’s chief executive officer.
“Damian’s genius lies in being able to bring together really disparate art forms into a single program,” Imhof said. “He has drawn in a brand-new audience, a younger audience. He offers something for everyone.”
The two-week festival, which begins July 29, has spilled out from the stage into dancing in the street, pop-up performances, free dance bills in the park, workshops for children.
It has even become a destination draw with a significant portion of the audience coming to the Vail Valley expressly for the festival, Imhof said.
In May, The Julliard School, one of the world’s premier performing-arts conservatories for music dance and theater, announced that Woetzel would become its president beginning in July 2018. Looking at his experience at Vail, as well as being director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program, it was a natural fit.
“Damian was a great choice” for Julliard, Imhof said. And while Woetzel will supervise next season and have some continuing role with the festival, Imhof said, “We are going to have to figure out our next chapter.”
Still, Woetzel’s vision reigns, and the permutations in his dance community are kaleidoscopic. One season, Lil Buck, with his undulating street jookin, was paired with ballerina Peck to a new musical piece by Philip Glass. Last year, Dorrance, who as a tap dancer and choreographer is pushing the bounds of the form, was joined by Irwin and singersongwriter and bassist Kate Davis.
Isabella Boylston, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, home to the most classical of ballets, danced with avantgarde BalletX.
The innovations and matchmaking are set to continue this season. The Martha Graham Dance Company will perform “Lamentation Variation,” choreographed by Lil Buck. It is his first commission by a major dance company. Graham’s 1930 “Lamentation” is one of the iconic works of modern dance.
There is also emphasis on women choreographers with a special one-night program. “We wanted to emphatically state that these are women choreographers in our midst,” Woetzel said.
Lauren Lovette, a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet who has just ventured into choreography, will premiere a dance, as will Claudia Schreier, a young contemporary ballet choreographer who debuted a work at Vail last year. Schreier’s first experience at Vail was some 10 years ago as a summer intern at the festival. In another piece of invention, Schreier will work with poet Andrea Gibson on her piece.
Modern-dance choreographer Pam Tanowitz will offer a new work to “Entre’acte” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, who is the festival’s first composer-in-residence. Shaw will be working on a new score for next year’s festival.
Dorrance, who is a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, the socalled genius grant, and this year’s artist-in-residence, is also on the “Celebrating Women Choreographers” bill.
“We’ve had this artist-in-residence for several years, and they are charged with being a catalyst,” Woetzel said. “Michelle is a collaborator beyond expectations ... . Michelle is very much the motor.”
The festival — anticipating the centennial anniversaries of Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, both born in 1918 — is honoring the choreographer and composer. There will be a performance of Robbins’ 1944 “Fancy Free,” his first ballet, danced to a Bernstein score, and an “UpClose” rehearsalstyle performance will explore some of Robbins greatest works.
Matthew Neenan, one of the most inventive modern ballet choreographers, will set a new piece to a Bernstein score. “We bow to Robbins and Bernstein,” Woetzel said.
As every year, ballet enthusiasts will be able to see some of the top dancers from many companies -- American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet and Boston Ballet -on one stage at the two International Evenings of Dance. Among those dancers are ABT’s Misty Copeland and New York City Ballet’s Robert Fairchild, who appeared on Broadway in “An American in Paris,” garnering a Tony nomination.
While Woetzel has been able to assemble that parade of virtuosos, that was never an end in itself. “The goal is to collaborate together and create things that are astounding,” he said. “Who knows what might happen when you are dealing with open hearts and minds. Who knows?”