E2 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022
dance
zation, audiences are one part of
the equation. Nurturing new work
is another. To develop ABT’s reper-
toire and the careers of undiscov-
ered artists, Jaffe is also consider-
ing launching a choreography
competition.
“I’d really like for Ballet Theatre
to discover new choreographers,”
she said. “Often it’s safer to say,
‘Oh, somebody else discovered
them — so now I can give them an
opportunity.’ ” Instead, she said,
ABT should lead the way in bring-
ing talented new voices to light,
“and give them a platform, along
with a deeper educational compo-
nent.”
As for ABT’s backbone — its
long-held treasury of classic, full-
length story ballets, many that
date to the 19th century — Jaffe
said she aims to shelve, temporari-
ly, those that contain offensive ste-
reotyping or run counter to con-
temporary sensibilities.
“I will definitely do this with a
team, not on my own,” she said.
The ballets she has in mind in-
clude “Le Corsaire,” which centers
on a Greek woman sold into slav-
ery and a pirate hero who is him-
self an enslaver, and “La Bay-
adère,” which is set in a fictional-
ized India among temple dancers
and a morally questionable high
priest. Some of the characters and
religious depictions have drawn
criticism from the Hindu commu-
nity and others who see it as insen-
sitive. Jaffe plans to make chang-
es, possibly adjusting storylines
and details, after undertaking re-
search, discussions and surveys,
“so that we’re really hearing from
audience members.”
“The last thing we want to do is
just ignore the issues and say we
don’t care. We do care. And we
want to be mindful about what we
do.”
For ABT, which for decades has
depended on the classics for its
identity and bottom line, these
will be major steps. They’re sure to
draw some skepticism. Jaffe,
though, is firm: This work needs to
be done. She’s right.
“There’s so much to do around
that,” Jaffe said. “And we will. And
it will take some time till we pre-
sent those ballets again. Not until
the research is done.
“I don’t want to just do some-
thing because it is beautiful,” she
added. “I want to make sure it has
been thoroughly discussed, so that
it is celebratory.”
Education, research, develop-
ing the new, re-examining the old.
Jaffe is describing a big-picture
outlook. It’s what the business
community calls systems think-
ing: looking at how processes are
interrelated, rather than scatter-
ing attention on separate details.
It’s the perspective, too, of a
woman with an open and analyti-
cal mind. She is digging down into
the sources of ballet’s perception
problem, to address the core rea-
sons it is generally not well under-
stood. She’s approaching the is-
sues broadly. And she’s placing
value on listening.
Something else jumped out in
Jaffe’s comments: She doesn’t
seem to be motivated by the spot-
light.
For example, she has no im-
mediate plans to choreograph
works for ABT, though she has
created ballets since retiring from
the stage in 2002. She choreo-
graphed a version of “Swan Lake”
recently in Pittsburgh, with an
unusual ending: After being be-
trayed by Prince Siegfried, the be-
witched swan queen, Odette,
throws herself into the titular
lake, following tradition, but the
difference is that it’s a heroic act,
not a despairing one. In an unusu-
al twist, Odette’s self-sacrifice re-
leases her sister swan-maidens
from their spell so they can be free
women again.
“She is teaching Siegfried what
real leadership is,” Jaffe said. “She
has become a woman of strength,
and she says to him, ‘This is what
you have to do for your people.’ ”
Asked whether this suggests
her own leadership style, Jaffe
laughed, and demurred, and
spoke instead of the pleasures of
nurturing.
“I do get great satisfaction out
of helping others to grow,” she
said. “It’s not about me anymore.”
ROSALIE O’CONNOR
BY SARAH L. KAUFMAN
B
allet has never been es-
pecially swift in adjust-
ing to social progress,
but that seems to be
changing. When Susan
Jaffe takes over from Kevin Mc-
Kenzie as artistic director of
American Ballet Theatre at the
end of the year, for the first time in
history women will lead two of the
nation’s three major ballet compa-
nies.
This is a watershed moment for
women’s progress in the field.
Jaffe’s appointment, announced
May 9, parallels San Francisco Bal-
let’s news in January that Spanish
ballerina Tamara Rojo will replace
longtime artistic director Helgi
Tomasson this year. The hiring of
these women bucks a persistent
trend, for up until now, women’s
leadership gains have been over-
whelmingly among the smallest
regional companies. According to
recent data from Dance/USA, the
national service organization,
troupes with budgets of $3 million
and below are mostly led by fe-
male artistic directors. Ballet com-
panies with larger budgets tend to
be male-dominated, with very few
exceptions.
This is the case, for example,
with New York City Ballet, the
obvious third member of the coun-
try’s top echelon of ballet. It has
always been led by men, though in
2019 retired dancer Wendy Whel-
an became associate artistic direc-
tor after applying for the top job.
Jaffe’s selection feels significant
for another reason. In a recent
interview, the former ballerina
shared a farsighted, well-consid-
ered vision for ABT that could
quietly blow up the entire way we
think about ballet. Jaffe, who re-
cently turned 60, has in mind such
steps as opening up artistic pro-
cesses to the public and soliciting
views from balletgoers and other
stakeholders on the delicate task
of updating thorny works from the
classical canon. It’s an audience-
first approach.
“I was there when people were
wrapped around the block, sleep-
ing overnight to see a perform-
ance,” said Jaffe, reflecting on the
early 1980s, at the start of her
professional career. Having left
her hometown of Bethesda, she
joined ABT’s corps de ballet in
1980.
Three years later, Jaffe was a
principal dancer, at a time when
ABT programs were headlined by
such famed ballet partnerships as
Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Ba-
ryshnikov, who was then artistic
director. Audiences were enrap-
tured. Ballet was a hot ticket.
“The interesting thing about
that,” Jaffe said of the broad fan
base, “is those people were educat-
ed about ballet.”
Jaffe is speaking from her office
at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre,
where she has been artistic direc-
tor since 2020. Before that, she
spent eight years as dean of dance
at the prestigious University of
North Carolina School of the Arts.
Education is a primary pillar of
her plans for ABT. She aims to fill
in the gaps of public knowledge
about ballet and dance, and build
on that to leverage ABT’s pro-
grams.
“Ballet is a very intellectual art
form and people don’t know it,”
she said. “And when you don’t
know much about it, it’s hard to
understand, and I think that’s why
it’s not as easily embraced as, for
example, music. It takes a while
for the eye to understand it be-
cause there’s so much going on.
But if you have a little insight, you
can do that much more quickly.”
What’s interesting here is that
Jaffe is looking at the larger sys-
temic issue. It’s not enough to
drum up excitement for a specific
show. The bigger challenge is to
groom potential audiences long
term, and teach the public to ap-
preciate and even crave the art
form.
Is this a woman’s way of ad-
dressing a problem? It’s tempting
to say so. Maybe it’s also smart
thinking. Jaffe didn’t speak of tick-
et sales, programming or commis-
sions. She talked about getting
back to basics. Laying the ground-
work for growth by building a
knowledge base.
“I would like to do digital pro-
grams, maybe 15 to 20 minutes on
the website. Like Cliffs Notes,”
Jaffe continued. “To present the
history, the lineage, the larger
themes, and here’s what to look for
in the ballet. I’d do this with the
contemporary works, too. You
could do so much: The lineage of
teachers and choreographers.
How one dancer passes it on to the
next.
“Then you start to understand
the lineage, and then you can see it
in the movements and it starts to
make more sense.”
In any performing arts organi-
CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
Susan Ja≠e might just blow up how we think about ballet
MIRA
JORDAN BELLOTTI
MIRA
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Susan Jaffe dances in “La
Bayadère.” Jaffe will be the next
artistic director of American
Ballet Theatre, where she
previously was a principal
dancer for two decades. Jaffe
teaches at ABT’s Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis School in
- She performs in “The
Merry Widow.”