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Ethan Stiefel's life used to be overwhelmingly full of things and full of people: the crowded streets of New York City, the throngs of admirers waiting for a glimpse of him outside a stage door, movie sets, press interviews and reviews and practicing, practicing, practicing.

It was the life of a star, the life of one of the most celebrated dancers in the world, the life of someone fulfilling a dream, a passion and a philosophy every time his ballet shoe stepped on stage.

He's still that star, still that insatiable, driven artist pushing himself to exploration within dance, but now his artistic legacy has another facet: that of teacher and leader.

Winston-Salem is a long way from New York City. That's where he now sits, on a daily basis, behind a desk -- that is, when he is not choreographing a new production of "The Nutcracker," pushing his body to its limits or asking his students to do the same.

Now entering his second year as dean of the School of Dance at the UNC School of the Arts, he is focused on guiding the school to fulfill its destiny as the best school of dance. Period.

"This is a different deal here (in Winston-Salem), but it's beneficial," Stiefel says. "It's a somewhat removed environment. There is room to focus and not be distracted."

The dean approaches dance as a skill, a theory, a philosophy and a way of life. He always has.

In his youth, he left Madison, Wis., to continue his studies at Marcia Dale Weary's Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and soon was awarded a full scholarship at the School of American Ballet. There he studied under Stanley Williams and studied with Mikhail Baryshnikov at his School of Classical Ballet. Stiefel then began his performing career at age 16 with the New York City Ballet, where he quickly rose to the rank of principal dancer.

He came to the attention of an even broader audience when he starred in the cult hit movie "Center Stage" (2000), portraying Cooper Nielsen, where in one famous scene, he rides his motorcycle on stage as part of the movie's climactic performance.

Now, in addition to his duties at the School of the Arts, he is still a principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre, despite knee surgeries and the struggle to maintain a professional level of movement after healing.

But Stiefel is nothing if not strong. In the world of ballet, a dance tradition based on artistic European refined movement, he stands out as distinctively his own person -- and a distinctively American one at that.

"I grew up in the Midwest, and I fell into ballet because of my sister," he says. "I was a boy, and I was good; I enjoyed it. I had the backbone to withstand the ridicule."

Sitting in the same room with Stiefel explodes the dainty notion of ballet. He is known as one of the highest jumpers in ballet, and he exudes strength with grace. However, he is quick to point out the daily value of hard work that keeps that strength at its peak.

He sees that kind of potential in his students, and through innovative approaches to teaching, he asks each student to expand his horizons when it comes to dance. Yes, there are the relentless practices of ballet positions, the traditional bar work and the study of classical forms, but Stiefel also has brought in a disc jockey to inspire students to think across genres, a black-belt karate instructor to find similarities in different disciplines and cross-country training on the School of the Arts campus to provide students with out-of-the-studio exercise to push their bodies and gain strength for the stage.

"It is my duty to prepare students for the art form as it lives and breathes today," he says. "This school has very good bones, and the platform of the school is good. But the mission of an artist is not just to maintain. I was hired with the understanding that I would bring fresh ideas to the table."

That extends out of the classroom and onto the stage.

"We don't honor the past by placing it on a pedestal," he says. To that end, he has decided to inject a more current vibe into this year's production of "The Nutcracker."

" 'The Nutcracker' has such a huge impact because it's most people's first exposure to ballet. It's accessible but complex, and we want a performance that gets people to see dance for the fantastic art form that it is. I want to speak in a language that makes sense to the culture today, bringing new things to it. It's still the classical ballet, but we are entertainers, too, and this production will have show biz and entertainment value."

All of this tweaking and changing fits into Stiefel's dance philosophy, namely that ballet and the larger language of dance is not a rigid form, but a changing and evolving, vibrant, living thing where he and all of his students have a chance to join the conversation. And how do they join it? Through work and the practice of the craft every day, the reasons that brought this world-renowned dancer to North Carolina in the first place.

"To develop the school as a whole, we need to embrace an identity," he says. "We can become the definitive conservatory if people recognize what is in their own backyard. This community can take ownership, pride in the school. It was a pioneer of its type."

And Stiefel is a pioneer of sorts, defining dance through an American lens, daring to have fun, to play with the form and refusing to slip onto the easy path of doing what he always has done.

"I have high expectations for myself, and maybe it's impractical to push myself," he says. Driven to keep dancing as long as he can, his passion for dance is palatable, putting his "money where his mouth is," so to speak, and showing the students he isn't asking anything of them he does not already expect of himself. He leads by example, and the School of the Arts is excited about where it's headed.

Contact Stephanie Burt at charlotteghost@gmail.com

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