hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. a five-star tour of the stars with the renounced physicist, neil degrass tyson, who shows us the intergalactic connections between space and our military. ♪ plus, a violin performance by one of the world's best. daniel tells me how his family history led him to music. and how daniel wetzel became the president of the prestigious julliard school.

additional support by walter. sue and edgar walkenhaim iii. the sheryl and phillip millstien family. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london.

in a world more interconnected than ever, we could not be more divided. from the kavanaugh hearings to elections to climate change. here to save the day though, neil degrass tyson, connecting the dots between two vastly different universes in his new book "accessory to war: the unspoken alliance between actual physicist and the military." the host of "star tour" explains the straight line within the relationship. when i spoke with him from new york, we discussed how astrof z astrophysics affects everything from climate change to politics, even to truth. neil degrass tyson, welcome to the program. >> thank you. thanks for having me. >> okay. so what is this accessory to war? why is that the subtitle of your book? it is kind of alarming, that astrophysics would be an accessory to war. >> yeah. so the full subtitle is accessory to war, the unspoken

alliance between astrophysics and the military. it shocks people. it might not be upsetting to some who sort of are fans of the military. it is definitely a bit surprising to consider that what i do professionally, in my community of astrophysicists, what we do have an overlap with the concerns and needs of the military. that has been the case for centuries and even millenia. going back to the time where if you were going to be engaged in conquest, empire building, and you had vessels, naval vessels to accomplish this, you needed to know where you were on earth. you needed to know where you came from, where you were headed, how to get back home. the navigational question, all of your ability expressed through knowing where you are on earth was established and empowered by the intellectual

backbone of astronomers of the day. we know the sky. we can navigate the sky, that gets brought to earth to know where you are by longitude and latitude. >> that sounds like a perfectly reasonable accessory. i mean, i'm a layperson, but it is a little bit like having a gps system, right? >> so you bring the navigator's tools of antiquity to modern times, and you've got gps. >> right. >> the gps was conceived and built and launched by the u.s. air force. the u.s. space command. a branch within the u.s. air force. yes, now the military knows not only where to go and where they're coming from, but now that we have targeted missiles, you now have weapons targeting that exploits the precision of gps -- of gps satellites that enable it. the gps satellite tells you

where you are longitude and latitude and also where you are in altitude and exactly what time it is. all of this combined empowers the military. now, we use it for commerce. we also use it for commerce. to many people's surprise, i think, in the early days. now, we have entire industries that exist only because of gps. like uber or tinder. yeah. >> i didn't think we were going to be talking about tinder with the professor of astrophysics. none the less, here we are. so does it bother you? does it bother you to be an accessory to the military and to war, essentially? what is the worst that can happen? i mean, you've described perfectly rational needs, such as knowing where you're going to njoining of astrophysics and war? >> yeah, so i used to stand in

judgment of this. i track that to the fact that i was raised in new york city, which is generally a liberal town. i'm from a community, an academic community that is also liberal and generally anti-war. plus, my earliest encounters with war, my earliest exposure to war was vietnam on television in the late 1960s. so there was no one at that time saying, oh, this is a just war. this is a great war. we will build statues of our war heros. no. that was a bad war. so having been sort of shaped and imprinted by that understanding of war, there was no way i could think any war would be good or just. i would be much older before i'd reflect on the fact that there are wars that were just and necessary. the second world war especially among them. you're not going to sit idly by while hitler does what he does.

>> again, you could say that the astrophysics of the time, which could see potentially -- i don't know. could it at the time? >> no. we had no -- there was no views from space. there was no satellites or anything. what science could have done would have shown how closely related genetically all human beings are on earth. removing your possible justification of hitler saying that his strain of humans were better than other strains of humans, there are ways that science could have been brought to bear on that. part of that was mixed in with the you agaugenics movement. they mis-applied darwin. i'm more fit than you, so i'm a better race or a better nation, a better culture. so there was so much room for abuse there. you need people to keep that in check, as well.

here's what happened, von bron, who was a german rocket pioneer, invents the v-2 rocket. the v-2 rocket, which terrorized london, it was the first ballistic missile. this is -- just to appreciate what this is, it is a rocket that gets launched, leaves earth's atmosphere, travels in the vacuum of space, and lands on its target vastly farther away than any previous missile could be launched. warner von bron knew that if after that war people were going to go into space in any kind of big way, they would need that technology. sure enough, at the end of the war, we didn't send von bron to nuremberg on trial. we took him and his team, and they birthed our space program. which, by the way, is a vote for immigrants to the united states. >> well, it is a vote for immigrants, but it is also kind of alarming.

we're getting off piece here, but it is also, you know, failing to hold mass murderers . i mean, it is not a new thing that people have done in the past. maybe the early version of that is you eat the heart of your enemy to gain the strength that they had, or to believe you gained their strength. maybe this is a modern version of that. so, yeah, warner von bron birthed nasa, basically. our rockets to the moon were conceived by him. >> that's incredible. i did not know that. >> yes, yes. we cleanse the background there, that he attempted to, you know,

slaughter civilians. by the way, the v-2 rocket comes in supersonically. it's not one of those. no, no, it is no sound. it is traveling faster than the sound it makes falling out of space. you walk down the street, and a block explodes. terrifying weapon. that is the same technology that you need to go into space. this is this -- this is the alliance. this two-way street. i discover something. the military says, hey, i want some of that. the military discovers something. it gets declassified. i look over the picket fence and say, that'll help us, too. that's the two-way alliance that's been going on forever. >> just briefly, is the v-2 the precursor of the intercontinental ballistic missile? >> precisely. >> so in your book, you've said the first trillionaire will be the person who exploits the national resources of space itself, and that access to space in the future may be the deciding factor on whether we

cannot only accommodate the growth of our population but produce and generate wealth. >> here's the thing, this relationship between astrophysics and the military enabling each other, in the future may actually be the greatest source of peace that the world has ever seen. consider that some fraction of all wars, i couldn't tell you what, maybe a third, are over limited access to resources. you fight someone to gain that access. well, space has basically unlimited resources. there are asteroids with -- single asteroids with more gold, platinum, cadmium, that has ever been mined on earth. of course, unlimited sources of energy with the sun. so if space becomes our backy d backyard, then access to resources get removed as one of

the reasons why people might ever wage war. if you take over an asteroid, i'd say, fine. i'm taking over this asteroid. i'll compete with you economically. well, here's another one. there's hundreds of thousands of asteroids out there. so it's a -- maybe this relationship, rather than something that feeds war, might actually ultimately feed peace. >> so what do you think about the trump administration's space force? i mean, what is that all about? is that for military aggressive purposes, do you think, or is it for the purpose of, you know, encouraging our future? >> yeah, it's a great question. i think the speeches, if you heard them, the original one by the president himself and then by the vice president, they -- there was some muscle flexing. it's like, yeah, look at this b bicep here. that's going to be in space. there was a lot of that. it left people thinking that

we'll just have sort of missiles destroying things in space. that's not a realistic future for what that is. space is a communal place. the way space would be used in the future is as it has been, a place of communication. the second gulf war 2003 was enabled by space assets. space has already been militarized. >> what do you mean about the space assets? i covered that war. i don't remember the space assets. >> okay. great that you can say that. i was there. so what's happening is, that is the first time that gps became a fundamental part of all of the branches of the armed forces, knowing where they are and where they were headed and how to target their missiles.

space became, in a sense, an informational command center that guided everything happening. that contributed to the targeting, all of it that went on in that war. it was the first space-enabled war we ever conducted. >> i remember how efficient it was. it was like a knife cutting through butter. from entering iraq in the south all the way up to baghdad took very little time and very little resistance. >> consider also that in large regions that don't have street maps, that don't have roads, that don't have traditional things that tell you exactly where you might find grandma's house or supply depot, you need coordinates from space to tell you that. now, you know where things are, even when you didn't previously have a map of the region. in that sense, space has already been militarized. not in the sense of weapons and

lasers and things. in the sense of intelligence gathering for other operations. >> do you foresee a time when space itself will be, as you put it, weapons and lasers and, you know, intergalactic battles taking place up there, or is that just "star wars" fantasy? >> when you think of what a military's task should be, and this is back to the space force, you want them to -- what does the military do? they protect you. they provide security for your life. sometimes it's at the border. in modern times, you need cybersecurity, that sort of thing, okay. in space, what are they protecting? well, i have space assets. i have a weather satsatellite. i have a tv communication satellite. you want to protect those because i'm conducting commerce through them. not i, but our citizenry. now, it is not only the value of the hardware that's up there, it is the value of the economy that it enables on earth.

so if you have a weather satellite, and it gives you a picture of a moving hurricane and you can warn people in businesses and commerce, move, do this, take this precaution, you save money, you save lives. so you want a space force to protect that, wouldn't you? now, i'm a rogue state. i have a satellite that is kind of irritating your commerce satellite, or i'm tickling it, i want to block it. you'll want some way to defend against that. outer space treaty of 1967, which reads like kumbaya, it is beautiful. i mean, it is very hopeful. we all hold hands and save other astronauts if they're in trouble. it is beautifully written. it allows you to put defensive weapons in space. now, if i see your satellite coming towards me, even though it hasn't done anything yet, and i'm a little spooked, and i as a first strike take you out, is

that defensive? right? there's some gray area there. >> that's really gray. >> really, really gray. >> really gray. >> it's gray on earth, too, of course. now, i don't see bombs in space. plus, you're not going to drop a bomb on earth from orbit. that's not efficient. we already can deliver a bomb through intercontinental ballistic missile. you can send a missile to anywhere on earth within 45 minutes. that makes them so deadly. that's why those held the world hostage during the length of the cold war. you can't do that. you can't conduct business or military operations. if you have colonies on mars and colonies on the moon, multiple colonies on the moon, then you start getting tribal and say, this is my colony, not your colony. this is my country, my flag. i can imagine wars on the surface of the moon. wars on the surface of mars. i can imagine that. >> let me ask you this, my flag,

my country, my colony, my moon, my planet. neil armstrong and, of course, films are being produced now, series, about the first time man walked on the moon, and it was man. neil armstrong. nasa doesn't seem to be -- and i don't know what you think about this -- is there any more value to anymore, you know, manned space flights that actually land on the moon or on other planets? >> you ask a very important and fascinating question. so in the modern age of robotics, to send humans to do science, when you can send 10 or 20 or 50 robots for the same price, nearly all scientists will say, send the robots. i don't need to go. i can now land in 50 places on mars and do science rather than just one. people, you have to feed them, they usually want to come back

to their families, you know. this is costly. the ship has to be -- you know, quote, man raided, as opposed to machine rate id. it has to be extra safe. it is hard to argue why you'd send a person. however, if you want to talk about the passion for why you do this, i've never seen a ticker tape parade given for a robot. >> i agree. >> right? you want to talk about what will stimulate interest in the next generation. you send a person who can come back and tell stories about it. be on the news. that becomes what drives us to want to do it. one of our own has done it. it is no different from ant antiquity where the great explorers would come back and write the books, show the drawings. they'd bring samples.

that is the vicarious experience of feeling this through one of your own. another human being. >> so -- >> so that has value from making it happen in the first place. i will not deny that reality. >> and you've said i'm okay with a u.s. space force, but what we need most is a truth force. one that defends against all enemies of accurate information, both foreign and domestic. i assume you would include sk n scientific information, facts, evidence, all the rest. >> that's right. we live in an era where nobody cla claims they know what the truth is. fake news, real news. there are systems in place to establish what is true, what is objectively true about the world. one of them is the national academy of science. science, by the way, was established by abraham lincoln. what year? 1863, when he clearly had other important things going on in his life. he signed into law this body of

scientists, independent of any politics going on in washington, to advise the executive branch and the legislative branches of what role science might play in establishing laws and legislation for the benefit of our citizenry. >> that's so -- >> then -- >> i mean, i just feel like jumping in because it is so relevant right now. the idea of defending the truth, defending facts and evidence, and just to harp back to astrophysics, well, at least to nasa, when we read that, actually, back in 1998, james hanson provided what is considered the first warnings about global warning, telling the u.s. congress that he could declare with 99% confidence that a recent sharp rise in temperatures was a result of human activity. he recently said, all we've done is agree there is a problem. promises like paris don't mean much.

it is wishful thinking, something the government played on us since the 1990s. all this to say, your much-wanted scientific community has just not been listened to. politics did come to play. there was that moment where we might have been able to stop this tipping point moment of the increase in degrees of temperature, and politics intervened. >> just to be clear, in my later years, i'm more mature than i was decades ago. i recognize that politics is always going to be in there at some level. the problem occurs when the politics stands in denial of newly revealed, objective truths about how this world works. then you have people choosing political sides around scientific results. rather than saying, we have the global warming. we're doing it. let's go in the back room and

dukee ie i police -- politically. i don't have any problem with that conversation happening behind or in front of closed doors. when what's going on behind closed doors is denial of what scientists are telling you, oh, my gosh, that's the beginning of the end of an informed democracy. watch the united states slide down the hill of irrelevance, relative to the rest of the world. >> neil degrass tyson, thank you so much for joining me. >> sorry. i'm screaming at you half the time. i'm sorry. you got me started here. >> we like it. we like the passion. it is important. >> thank you. back down to earth now. albeit with the heavenly sounds of strings. daniel hope is one of the world's best violinists. in demand from east to west. he's opening up about the story

on his life. a new film explores daniel's complex family history, which slows from nazi germany to south africa to here. now, daniel has come with his violin to our london studio for a little music and some discussion about his fascinating history. daniel, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> you do have an extraordinary life story. you film opens with you back in germany. you are looking at a family plot, the grave, graveyard. tell us the significance of that on your life story. >> well, my mother's side, my family came from berlin. they were jews. they were kicked out of germany in the 1930s. it is an extraordinary story. my grandmother grew up in a house which was confiscated by the foreign minister at the time and turned into the center for

the nazis. my grandmother's house became this extraordinary place. i started to research this many year ago. >> in fact, that's it. >> that's the house. having found out more about what went on in this house, i also started to research other members of the family. we found a grave, a beautiful plot in a berlin cemetery. i went there to see if we could find out more about it. it was an egyptian gentleman who had wanted to buy it and use it to be buried like pharaoh. i was able to intervene and get it back for our family. >> so you now own that property. >> yes. well, it still belongs to the government, in a sense, but we have the rights as a family. we're able to restore it. it is one of the most beautiful tombs in germany. designed by a very famous scu t

sculptor from the 19th century. it is going back to history, going back to the source. >> going back to your roots. >> yes. >> because, in fact, your story is that you were born in south africa. >> yes. >> because of this persecution of your grandmother's family in nazi germany. they fled to south africa. also, from another direction, your father's family ended up in south africa. tell us how they met and why south africa. >> my father's grandfather came from ireland. ran away at the turn of the century. got on a ship and went to south africa. had the idea to fight with the british and stayed in south africa. my father was a writer, a wonderful writer, a very political person. his books were banned under the apartheid regime. he was -- is still a fiercely political person. at the time, anti-apartheid. we were given an exit visa.

it meant that you could leave the country but you had to split your passport and never come back again. >> good riddance. >> exactly. we decided to do that. my parents weren't happy bringing up young children in apartheid environment. we came back to europe. they had no money. they ran out of money. they tried to make end's meet. >> they landed here in england. >> in london. >> the most amazing thing, because clearly what brought you to music was your mother, who became secrerere of the greatest violinists ever. right? >> yeah. >> menuin. >> yes. >> how on earth did that happen? >> she went to look for a job. >> that's you with him as a kid. >> that's right. who offers came her way. secretary to the archbishop at the time or menuin. >> she chose menuin.

>> he had visited south africa and given a sermon. my parents were shocked he didn't distance himself from apartheid. they said never, ever to the archbish archbishop. then the offer came, and my mother said, how difficult can it be? it was supposed to be a part-time job, six months. she ended up being there over 25 years. >> she did and you did. how did her sbgbeing a secretar and managing his life lead to you -- look, he turned out to be your mentor, your instructor, your teacher. how did that happen? how did -- i mean, where did your musicality come from? >> there was taken in switzerland, where menuin had his wonderful festival. we went every summer. my mom would take me to the rehearsals and concerts. i grew up listening to music. the first orchestra i heard was the chamber orchestra, as an example, as a young kid. i never dreamed i'd be their music director. in a sense, everything started

there and here in london. at the age of 4, having absorbed all this music, i demanded that i play the violin. i said to my parents, i have to play the violin. >> they must have loved it, right? >> i think, you know, if you're surrounded by music all the time, things like this can happen. that's the great thing about music. it can inspire children. it can open their minds. i was determined. i just wanted to play. >> yeah. >> that's it. i studied with nelson, a great, great teacher. menuin found this teacher for me, paid for the lessons, as well h. ega well. he gave me the first chance. for that, i'm grateful. >> menuin was so good, wasn't it einstein that said, there must be a god? >> when menuin gave his debut in berlin in 1929, he was 12 years old. einstein rushed back and said to this 12-year-old boy, almost

falling on his knees, now i know there is a god in heaven. it is a much-used quote, but it is true. there was nobody like menuin. his first explosion onto the international scene was unparalleled. >> i encountered the great man when i was a shop assistant down the road from here. >> really? >> yeah, i was 20 years old. he came in. his wife came in, and she's quite something. but his aura was really, really present. amazing to meet you today and to talk about him. because you then went to the menuhin boarding school at the age of 6. >> 8 at the time. >> it was dire, wasn't it? >> well, it was too early for me. it is a very, very fine school. at the time, you know, i didn't really know what practice was. i didn't know what the regime of making music was. i just wanted to have fun and play.

so it didn't go down too well. i was very unruly. i had to spend too much time on one piece. also, boarding was -- i was homesick. the whole thing didn't go well, put it that way. >> well, your mom, in fact, speaks eloquently to the bits that didn't go well, when she was called in by the teachers for disciplinary actions and complaints about you. this is what she said, quoted in your film. >> daniel has done something that was strictly forbidden. i held onto my chair, and they said, he was caught practicing the concerto. i beg your pardon? is that a crime? something wrong with that? no, but he's far too young to be playing mendelson. esai i said, what is he supposed to

play? the batch a-minor. i said, he's been playing that two years. it is time to move on. he said, no. what's more, he was caught practicing secretly in the bathroom. >> it's true. >> she does give a great rendition of it. >> yeah. >> it seems absurd, but i guess music and violin and the greats have a particular schedule that you're meant to follow. >> that's right. it was too early for me. i was frustrated because i loved mendelson and wanted to play this piece. i wasn't allowed to. i stole the music from a friend and went to the communal bathro bathroom. i locked myself in there and started playing. probably sounded terrible. it was the beginning of my love affair with the music. to this day, when i play that piece, i think back to the memories. >> you also think back very, very profoundly to the memoryce. you're determined to keep the spirit alive and also keep the silent jewish composures alive.

those who were tried to be silenced. also, the great mourning song for the dead is one you play often. this is by ravel. i believe you played it for menuhin at his deathbed. >> not his deathbed but his final concert. it was a few days before he died very suddenly. i played it as an encore after we played together as a gesture. i grew up on his recording of the piece. it was the last time i saw him. in hindsight, it became my own personal homage to him. i've played it many times on different occasions. it is to remember people. in the film, we were lucky enough to get into the house before it was sold. >> a great german writer. >> yes. just to remember certain moments in history.

the night of broken glass. i helped organize to remember that. >> you said it is personal, playing. do you feel jewish? >> i feel like a big mixture. i'm jewish, catholic, european. >> of course, i ask that because your family were christians but of jewish descent. >> correct. >> you've dedicated so much of your professional life to keeping the spirit of great jewish art and judaism alive. >> it goes back to the first rabbi. it is inescapable in that sense. i'm proud of it. also, the irish-catholic side. there's a lot of guilt in our family if you go back far

enough. >> you have maybe the red hair of the irish-catholic. >> that comes from the jewish background. >> there you go. what do i know? would you like to play for us? >> i'd love to. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> sounds like tears at the end there. >> yeah. >> i wonder, as you play that, which is a specific mourning song, whether you mourn a little bit for what's happening back in your homeland, germany, what's happening across europe. the rise of the kind of politics that is a stone's throw away from nazi germany. >> yes, i think it's a very

troubling time in world history. not just in europe but everywhere. the rise of the far right. i think the way that the world has become much smaller, with all of its benefits, also means that things happen much faster. they have -- at least i have the impression that they have a tendency to spiral out of control. you know, with two young children now, just had a new baby and a 4-year-old boy, i asked, what's going to happen to them? what is the future going to be? the future of europe, the future of politics, the future of peace. >> yet, you have gone to regain your german citizenship. you explained that you've gone to reclaim some of the family property there. >> yeah. >> in your film, you talk about, you know, what's happening there. almost like you went there and felt like an alien going back. i want to play the clip.

actually, it is in german. [ speaking german ] >> well, that was obviously said a couple of years before we're talking right now. where were you? you had this kind of premonition of what we may be going through right now. >> that was in the museum in w nubeck. the museum for the famous writer who was forced out of germany, as well, and immigrated to the

united states. it is a museum that looks at immigration, forced immigration, and the history of that. now, everywhere, this idea of people on the move, for whatever reason. i think there is great fear and great worry in europe. at the same time, i do believe very much in the european principles. i do consider myself a european or an englishman aboard. let's put it that way. >> your father became really the one who was behind you and taking you to all your practice sessions and all your performances. he said that -- i think he said that you almost had no personal life. being a violinist from a very, very young age meant that you sacrificed a lot. >> of course, there are sacrifices that one has to make. at the same time, both of my parents were unbelievably supportive. my father would write his books at the same time while i was

practicing. he would keep an eye on me but never force me. it is an interesting balance with parents, to give the support without going too far. giving a child that chance to experience music, classical music, is one of the greatest joys one can do. i'm eternally grateful with that chance. i see it with my children, as well. there is something about classical music which infiltrates the soul and opens up the imagination. >> having said that, you know, there's so much cutting and slashing of culture and music and art in school today, here and across europe, across the united states. it is also incredibly expensive. i mean, the school that you went to, the menuhin school, is very, very expensive. 250 pounds per year. >> now it is. >> now it is, yeah. how can young children who don't have that, you know, those means, yet might have a talent, even be exposed to music?

>> you know, there are many wonderful programs that give children instruments for free, for example. particularly in germany where i live, there are dozens of foundations that engage in young people and give them the chance. there's one in the uk. also, live music now, created by menuhin, brings young musicians together with people who wouldn't necessarily experience classical music. people in hospitals. more important than that, there are chances for them to get access to the music itself. that is the most important thing. to all politicians out there, i hope that you'll consider not cutting any more from the brujt. >> -- budget. >> it seems me need it more than ever with the harsh environment we're living in. thank you so much, daniel. >> the film "daniel hope, the

sound of life" premieres here in the uk this week. now, we pivot and pirouette to dance. where our next guest, damien weotzel, shines. he has leapt into a new year as the president of julliard school, a ground for the musicians and dancers of tomorrow. he told walter isaacson about his amazing career and why he and a cellist could drop into a school near you sometime. >> you had an education that was wideran wide-ranging because of your parents. it wasn't focused on dance initially. >> no, the whole concept really was just having the opportunity to engage with as many different things, then we'd see where it went. i can assure you, ballet was not the intention. it was enrichment of a sort. what i realized is that i liked to be on stage.

it happened to be a way to get on stage, so i stuck with it. as things went along, some things stuck harder than others. you know, my brother, you met him. >> you were both studying chinese. both studying dance. >> dance and music, different instruments. lots of different opportunities, as i said. then, you know, as you get older, you start to realize the ones that really -- where you have a foothold. >> but do you think a broad-based education, everything from the sciences to the humanities to the arts, helps you be more creative? >> i think it is essential. i think that the idea of creativity is all about how things go together. it is not simply about focus on one thing. it is about having to, you know, let go of certitude and engage in curiosity. say, yes, i want to, you know, be as good as i can at one thing, but it is how it relates to everything else, that's where the creativity actually comes.

>> it was around age 15, i think, when you had your first breakthrough, right? young apollo, was it? it was created for you. explain that for me. >> i grew up in boston. my brother and i had loves of different opportunities. the story i love to tell about this, and you'll have to indulge me, is that on one saturday morning, you know, on the way to these things, he and i in the back of the car looked at each other and i said, i'm not going to chinese anymore. it's just not -- i'm going to spend more time at ballet. he said, i'm not going to ballet anymore. i'm going to spend more time on chinese. he's been a partner in mckinzey for years, and i thought, i'm going to be a dancer. i felt it. all the other things said it in different ways, but i started to narrow at that moment. at 15, i was lucky enough to have an opportunity to make a new york debut at the joyceheat

house of dance. i had a nice reception, i guess. >> why did you want to come back to new york? >> new york is really the epicenter. it is an image, in my mind, of where tit is. the new york city ballet, new york state theater, lincoln center, all of that was here. that's where i set my eyes on. >> how important was robbins to you coming here? >> increasingly so, is the truth. i think that as i grew up, i started to become more and more aware of what, you know, we call the repertory, what might be considered classics and what might be considered, you know, bold and innovative. through it all, your heros start to develop. first, performers. i think, you know, when you're engaging in an art form like ballet, you look at your heros.

mesha, barishnakoff. what's that thing with the sailors? fancy free. robbins. i remember seeing photos of mesha doing that piece. of course, i knew something like "west side story." i was, oh, wait, same guy? wait, you know, this is childlike, but suddenly, i'm here in new york, and robbins is walking around. you know, the history is the present. i was lucky enough to not only, you know, work with jerry, but we, in some ways, identified me and brought me into the company. >> what was your favorite performances or roles that you played? >> you know, there are two that come to mind instantly. one was "fancy free." it was jerry's debut as a choreographer. we happened to be talking in their anniversary year, the

centennial. >> right. >> jerome robbins' 100th, as well. they were -- >> they worked together very closely here, right here in lincoln center? >> in those days, lincoln center wasn't here yet. jerry made "fancy free" with lenny as a collaboration. it is an extraordinary story. they were young guys on the cusp of greatness. there they are, making this thing. one of the treasured possessions i have are recordings of how leonard bernstein would make a recording. i picture it happening at a very down to the heels recording studio in times square. it'd be records. he'd send jerry a record of the latest music of "fancy free" with the piano score to choreograph on the road. jerry was on tour. then you'd hear this. you know, piano. jerry would take the microphone and talk and say, dear jerry, i hope you can understand this, i

hope you can understand that. on one of these recordings, he'll give you a sense of this extraordinary legacy. he says, i hope you can understand this particular section. it is a lot of piano. it is all aaron copeland's fault. you hear somebody laughing in the background. >> it was copeland? >> playing "two pianos" in the background. >> you joined the new york city ballet. >> yeah. it is a story about three sailors on shore leave. later, the second version of the broadway shore, "on the town," you may know it. ♪ new york, new york but first was "fancy free." they arrived. countless curtain calls, these young guys. jerry was in it as a dancer. he did this sailor. the other kid was dreamy. another is a little rough and tumble, short guy with a lot of energy. jerry would create these

characters. "fancy free." >> you said you retired in 2008. you didn't really retire. you broadened your aperture again, like going back to your childhood. you became interested in everything. art and society, combining them. explain bha explain, what was your thought process there? >> as i became the dancer i became, i was lucky enough to start to widen, you know, at a certain point. i started being the arts guy in the room. in a room of, you know, many things, i would get to go to conferences or, you know, what have you and talk about the role of the arts in society, in an aspirational way as well as a realistic way. it grew out of so many things i believed in benefitted me, coming to a place like new york and ending up at lincoln center, understanding the history of lincoln center and how that is wedded to the history of new york city itself. i started engaging about that particularly. you know, the obvious touch points, education, for instance. with the arts and education,

someone like me benefitted so greatly. >> are you worried we're losing arts in the schools? >> of course, yeah. i spent a lot of energy and time trying to work on that, talk about that, turn around arts program, which i know you've seen in action. created by president obama's committee on arts and humanities. expressly for making sure arts reached the most challenged school districts in this country. >> you do art strikes. what does that mean? >> yoyo and i dreamt up this concept of art strike. it is the idea that you can have a massive impact in a short amount of time if you focus your energy and you have the right collaborative partners. the principle of it was a visiting artist of any kind will often have enough time to do something in a community that they are not ordinarily in. we said on the way to the airport, why not stop at a

school? it was kind of like that. that's an art strike possibility. >> wait, you just rush into a school? >> well, you know, you have to lay a little groundwork. the idea of a presenter can say, you know, would you take the time, you know, while you're here doing your performance, whatever kind it is, to do a little bit of community work? we'll partner you with something. we tried this out in la about, i don't know, seven or eight years ago. he had a concert at disney hall. before he went to the airport, as it were, we went to a magical place called inner city arts down on skid row, downtown los angeles. it is an oasis for arts education. students from the general vicinity come on buses, and they spend time there and engage in music and dance and visual arts and drama. it literally is like a garage door goes up, and you go in, and you're like, this is heaven. >> it culminates with you coming here to julliard.

not a typical point. a dancer taking over julliard. everything you've just explained to me seems to be part of a great vision for julliard, which is connecting it. >> after my quote, unquote, retirement, when i stopped dancing in 2008, i was so lucky. i was directing performances. i was doing art strikes. i was working on arts education. i ended up working for you on the arts policy program. looking at ways that we can really push the arts in society. a lot of the same people kind of start to filter into this conversation on all the sides, whether they were doing the performance that, you know, was at lincoln center, or we're talking at an arts education n conferen conference. you know, it is yoyo, little bach, and others emerge. i was very intentional about keeping the opportunity to do all these different things. then this idea came to me about

julliard. it just was like lightning. i thought, well, that's where it all can happen. it can all happen. it is the cradle, if you will. it is not only the artists, the individuals that we can nurture and give all these opportunities to broaden and narrow and broaden and narrow, and to give them the opportunity to develop their voices as artists and as citizens of the global world. oh, my gosh. i just thought -- and it is dance and it is drama and it is music in the same building. it is right here. that vision i thought of when i moved here, that new york is like this, and to me, that's julliard. >> i'm sure you're not going to keep it in the building. >> no. we're already outside. we've done our version of art strikes. opened up a garage door the other day, about 66th street, and the fire company came and put their truck in front. we had a jazz concert. people were dancing. it was like, this is -- you

know, it's the utopia you hope for. that people are engaging. they're finding ways that it is a part of their lives. it is the role of the artist, in my mind, not only to perfect their craft, but to take what they have and give it to others, in ways that you can't imagine. you can always add more. be collaborative beyond collaborative. say, what does this have to do with this? let's overlap these things and see what we can make. julliard has, you know -- this is the place that can be. it creates the artists. it gives them the opportunities. then it sends them out into the world. >> damien, thanks for being with us. appreciate it. that's it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour and company." join us next week. to play us out, a little more hope. daniel hope, that is. ♪

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. tonight on kqed newsroom, the countdown to a supreme court vote. plus federal investigators uncover widespread health and safety issues in a california immigration facility and the man behind "the onion," takes on big tech and elon musk in his new book. we begin with the showdown over the supreme court. theed the senate moved to clear the last proceedural hurdle before a final vote on kavanaugh to the supreme court. that vote will