He then joined John Clifford's Los Angeles Ballet and toured nationally with this company including to New York City where he made his debut at the Joyce Theater.

American and Chinese artists and cultural representatives engaged in the forum included Joel Coen, Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma, Alice Waters, Liu Ye, and Ge You.

In December 2012, Woetzel and cellist Yo-Yo Ma organized a participatory visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, where musician Arthur Bloom and his MusiCorps program help wounded warriors to overcome injuries and recover their lives through intensive music practice.

Under Woetzel's direction, the festival has received wide acclaim for its innovation and growth as a nationally recognized showcase for dance, featuring such performances as the debut of Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, and the launch of New York City Ballet MOVES.

The annual International Evenings of Dance galas have become renowned for Woetzel's curation of first-time partnerships across companies and countries, as well as the presentation of young, emerging stars making their debuts in new repertory.

In August 2012, The New York Times' Alastair Macaulay wrote that the 2012 Vail International Dance Festival presentations "were distinguished above all by catholic taste and brilliant programming.

[12][13] In April 2013, Woetzel directed and produced a "jookin' jam session" at New York's Le Poisson Rouge, featuring the Memphis jooker Charles "Lil Buck" Riley with special guests including dancer Ron "Prime Tym" Myles, Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Marcus Printup (trumpet), Cristina Pato (galician bagpipe), John Hadfield (percussion) and the ensemble Brooklyn Rider.

[citation needed] In 2009 and 2010, Woetzel produced and directed the World Science Festival Gala Performances at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.

For the 2010 event he created an arts salute to science honoring the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, featuring performances by Yo-Yo Ma, John Lithgow, and Kelli O’Hara among others.

The first events have taken place in Vail, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., and almost all have featured Woetzel with Yo-Yo Ma in schools, engaging with students and their teachers to promote learning through the arts.

In June 2010, Woetzel directed the culminating year-end event which took place at New York's Museum of Natural History, and featured the participation of the Silk Road Ensemble and 450 6th grade students.

Titled “Night at the Caravanserai: Tales of Wonder,” the performance again featured hundreds of 6th grade students from New York-area public schools, Ma with his Silk Road Ensemble, vocalist Bobby McFerrin, the soprano Emalie Savoy, actor Bill Irwin, and author Jhumpa Lahiri, among others.

Woetzel originated featured roles in: Jerome Robbins' Ives, Songs and Quiet City, Eliot Feld's The Unanswered Question and Organon, Twyla Tharp's The Beethoven Seventh, Christopher Wheeldon's An American in Paris, Carousel, Evenfall, Morphoses, and Variations sérieuses, Peter Martins' Jeu de cartes and The Sleeping Beauty, and Susan Stroman's "The Blue Necklace" from Double Feature.

In October 1998, Mr. Woetzel appeared as one of the stars of the Cole Porter musical Jubilee in a special benefit performance at Carnegie Hall, during which he sang as well as danced.