Oppenheimer Takes Five

CATHERINE OPPENHEIMER DID NOT CREATE THE BOMB. (No relation to that father.) But she has founded a world of art and education that, for two decades, has had an explosive impact on our city. She is the reason many young local talents have turned their dreams into tangible, beautiful realities.

She sees her incredible ability to get these things done as a sometimes annoying daily “to-do this list.” Perhaps she is now exhausted at being so damn good at these implausible, high-decibel acts of entrepreneurial management ability. She is also disarmingly honest about not being sure of what to do next. I have no doubt she will figure it out pretty soon. Meanwhile, I hope she enjoys her break.

You had this amazing career in dance and have accomplished a lot of remarkable things.

I learned at a young age that getting things done brought positive feedback. I was drawn to ballet, and ballet dancers are, like, the hardest workers on the planet. I love to work hard. I like to dig in the garden or repair a fence or take out the garbage. I like just getting things done. It’s like a dog with a bone.

Tell us about the National Dance Institute of New Mexico’s training for kids.

I had started this NDI program where kids studied ballet and jazz and learned to read music. They came from Santa Fe, Española, Powoki, Los Alamos, and Santa Clara Pueblo. After a few months, parents start coming into my office and they’re like, Catherine, my kids are having the best time ever, but they’re here like 25 hours a week. We have to commute – we’re driving them in, then we pick them and up we’re driving them back. I can’t get them out of PE in our local school. Even though they’re dancing so many hours a day, would NDI consider starting a real school?

So I traveled around the country and went to several schools – what I found was that they really reflected the communities they were in. The first performing and visual arts high school was in Houston, and it was the first to be called a magnet school. Why? Because kids from so many different backgrounds wanted to go.

If you look at Dallas public schools, it’s like 98% African American and Hispanic, but if you look at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, it actually reflects the demographics of Dallas.

These schools have hugely high graduation rates, kids going to college, getting scholarship money; it was all good news. And so we said, well, let’s pursue this.

Our high school is unique because it’s a statewide residential charter school with admissions criteria. There’s no other public school in the state that has admissions criteria.

How do you decide who gets admitted?

It’s a visual arts admissions process. Say a girl comes in, she’s got a whole portfolio. She lays it all out, incredibly articulate, clearly has had access to all kinds of lessons, all kinds of help putting this together. It’s a beautiful presentation of her work, right?

Next kid comes in. He’s got a little pocket sketchbook and a number two pencil, and he flips through his book. Incredibly talented but has never had one lesson, has no idea what the commercial art world looks like. Both kids got in.

How many students are there?

There are 360 this year, going up to 400.

We had a girl from Chimayo with a voice literally from the angels. Perfect pitch. Always wanted to be an opera singer, but never had an opportunity to go to the Santa Fe Opera. So we got her lessons and an introduction to the opera, where she became an usher. She’s pursuing vocal music in college now.

We had two incredibly talented boys that got into Julliard. One was from Santa Fe, one from Española. They started with NDI then came to the New Mexico School for the Arts. And they both got full rides to Juilliard, but neither could go because Juilliard’s full ride is only for the classes. It didn’t include housing, insurance, or the ability to go back and forth at least once during the school year. That was like another $30,000.

So we got two boys into Juilliard, full ride, and neither of them could go.

It was heartbreaking. So our board members, Steven and Laurie Arnold, started the Next Steps Fund to fill in the gap. Now one is dancing full-time with Ballet Hispánico; he’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. And the other, also drop-dead gorgeous, got a job with Batsheva in Tel Aviv. So they are both working full-time as professional dancers.

So it’s working.

Yeah, so it can be done. It absolutely can be done.

How much of your time is devoted to this?

I put 15 really big years into NDI, where I was teaching every class and training every teacher. Then I kind of hit a point where I was mostly raising money; I would be sitting at meetings feeling really grouchy, and I thought, Okay, it’s time to back out.

So are you just kicking back…

I’ve never done that in my life. I love when I’m working 90 hours a week and stressed out of my gizzard and have 10,000 things on my to-do list. But I don’t know, maybe it’s being old, maybe it’s COVID, maybe it’s that both of my parents have died in the last few years and both my kids are launched in college, or that I got divorced and had breast cancer six years ago, but I’m just trying to figure out what to do. I’ve done a lot of philanthropy, and I realize that that doesn’t feed me. I’d much rather make the bricks and build the house than fund the work.

I’ve spent this past year deeply investing in myself with meditation, breath work, energy work, and some psychedelic stuff, just trying to expand my consciousness. Because I’d always joke to myself that when I die, they’re gonna put on my tombstone She worked really hard.

I went to Balanchine’s School of American Ballet starting at age seven. For Balanchine, ballet was connected to mysticism and spirituality. The only thing that mattered was his world of dance. When you grow up in an environment like that, you expect a higher purpose in your life, expect to be part of something greater than yourself, and I keep seeking that. I keep seeking to create community where there’s a greater purpose.

The ballet dancer thing is all about work, so I’m trying to find that personal spirit inside of me that isn’t about work, that’s about contributing in a more deeply personal, inwardly gratifying way.

I think many people are experiencing this, asking the larger questions – What is it about? What can I do? – especially in a world that’s…

On fire?

On fire.

It’s our demographic saying, Hey, what are my priorities? How do I contribute?

I was on the board of Save the Children for seven years, in part because I was so mistrustful of large NGOs. I ended up getting deeply involved, seeing programs all over the world. Everyone can get so caught up in their own backyard and their own issues about building a pool or not building a pool. And then you hear about the fact that we have more refugees than any time in history, or about the incredible drought and famine in southern Africa and the number of children that are dying, or about how the rest of the world really lives.

I’m almost at the point where I just feel like personal transformation and being as generous and clear and full of love on a daily basis as you can has to be part of the solution.

Because I just don’t know what else to do. I surrender every morning. I just surrender. I’m like, Okay, how do I participate? What can I do to help?

It’s funny, we’re all like, Holy crap, where are the elders? This happened on my watch! Here we are – did we not know that these fossil fuels were destroying our environment? I wasn’t really paying enough attention.

New Mexico feels like a bit of a refuge.

I feel wildly privileged and grateful to be here. I feel more connected to the land and to breath and air, and every day I have a moment where I’m just like, Thank you, thank you for letting me be here and continuing to live this life. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know what it looks like, but I’m so grateful to still be alive and to have this time.

I think it’s a gentle place, despite all the problems in Albuquerque. I think both the Hispanic and Indigenous communities are full of predominantly gentle people deeply connected to family and land and spirituality, and that informs this place.

Shirley MacLaine is a friend of mine, and she tells me all the time, This is one of the protected places – don’t leave New Mexico, stay where you are. The world is gonna get worse. I’m like, Okay, Shirley, thank you.