Susan Jaffe is coming full circle in a way. “Swan Lake” was her signature role when she was the face of American Ballet Theatre. Now she completes her first fully-staged season with her own staging of “Swan Lake” May 6-15 at the Benedum Center. That makes it a good time to conduct an overview of her numerous accomplishments at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. 

As a writer who has watched five artistic directors come and go (plus a brief interim run by Loti Falk Gaffney) during PBT’s 50+ year history, I am finding Jaffe to be the perfect choice, one who could put this company on the brink of an exciting new era.

The potential was there. If PBT was going to make the jump into the big leagues, it needed someone from a well-known international company, like American Ballet Theatre or New York City Ballet, preferably a principal dancer who knew what it took to reach the top of the crop, and someone who had extensive choreographic connections. 

Jaffe filled the bill on all counts and more.

PBT’s search team did it the right way. With Washington Ballet choosing former ABT principal Julie Kent, Pennsylvania Ballet luring former ABT principal Angel Corella, Pacific Northwest Ballet opting for former New York City Ballet principal Peter Boal and Miami City Ballet nabbing former NYCB principal Lourdes Lopez, the indicators were there.

The PBT board was led by then-board chair Dawn Fleischner and then-vice chair Mary McKinney Flaherty (now chairperson) and assisted by Management Consultants for the Arts, a national organization that has worked with Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, plus, locally, Carnegie Mellon University, City Theater and Pittsburgh Public Theater.

The process was exceedingly thorough. Fleischner and Flaherty wanted to access information and preferences from the essential  and “huge group of stakeholders” including the artists, staff and outside experts.

The opening attracted a large and diverse pool of applicants, both national and international. So the committee set about vetting the candidates. There were about ten interviews in the process, which was narrowed down to three or four, who were brought in to work with the company.  After a “two-way sales job” according to Fleischner, Jaffe was selected.

She was considered a prima ballerina at ABT, someone who was fast-tracked for success when she was plucked from ABTII by then-artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov. It would be a move that would bear considerable fruit, as she replaced star dancer Gelsey Kirkland on two days’ notice and went on to dance virtually every major role in the ballet repertoire, from Sleeping Beauty to Swan Lake, from Merce Cunningham to Twyla Tharp. I was quite aware of Jaffe’s reputation while living in Pittsburgh and was thrilled to see her perform on my trips to New York.

She brought an extensive resume, marked by awards like New York Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1998, Dance Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and an honorary doctorate from Texas Christian University in 2010, among others. Then she turned her attention to teaching, finding her way to become Dean at North Carolina School of the Arts.

What’s most important, perhaps, is that Jaffe has her pulse on the latest trends in dance. She came to Pittsburgh before her PBT appointment to conduct a ballet class and mental health workshop at Point Park University. These skills have become increasingly important in dance in order to instill a confidence and balance in the PBT dancers. Already they have had a noticeable impact, transforming the company in a way that has garnered enthusiastic reactions from Pittsburgh audiences.

Even with the effects of COVID19 looming above her, the road traveled has been remarkably smooth for Jaffe. She may have had to thread a needle at times, taking charge of pandemic choreography — in other words, dancers separately performing, yet united in a way — like the family-style films “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and an adaptation of “The Nutcracker. Then she branched out with a rousing version of “Bolero,” which brought standing ovations at the Open Air series last May and will be performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra next season. 

While we have seen a remarkable range of contemporary choreographers, demonstrating her strong artistic connections within the dance world, Jaffe has unquestionably showed an expert knowledge of the classics, which we have seen in numerous pas de deux, where a burgeoning confidence from the dancers indicated a dynamic new direction. There is no doubt that she has inspired the company dancers, along with elevating the technique of each and every one. 

Those are the bones of her career, but to speak to Jaffe is to listen to a master storyteller. Here are some of the personal accounts that filled out her life, the ones that led to Pittsburgh:

“I’m a star!” Jaffe’s first dance encounter was interpretive, to say the least. It involved rolling “on the floor” and “acting like a dog basking in the sun.” She wanted to quit, but spotted a ballet class. The 7-year old was more attracted to princesses and dutifully started her plies. She admittedly had “a prophetic dream” where she was lifted by a partner. “Dance has always chosen me,” says Jaffe.

Early career. “When I was young I was the star of my school,” she recalls. “When I got to New York, I was in a class with all the stars of all the schools.” Nonetheless, the 18-year old got into the studio company, ABT II. There she found she was only “boxed into certain roles.” When she asked director Richard Englund why, he replied that she would get into a major company. The others would not; thus he was giving them their chance to dance. As a teenager, though, it was “a very depressing time.”

Success!?! Baryshnikov came into the studio and Jaffe was subsequently told that he liked her. However she was only given a conditional contract for American Ballet Theatre, meaning that she was being watched. Jaffe would only officially be taken into the company if she lost 10 pounds. She began jumping through hoops — seeing a “diet doctor,” getting weighed, etc. She clocked in at 112, but they wanted her at 102. Then someone from the Berlin Ballet saw her and offered her a coryphee position, meaning a real contract and the position of a leading dancer in the corps de ballet. When she told the powers-that-be that she wanted to accept the offer, they shoved a paper in front of her and said “sign on the dotted line. I was too young to understand that I was negotiating.” 

ABT. Jaffe made national news right away when stars Gelsey Kirkland and Patrick Bissell, then embroiled in drug problems, failed to show up for a dress rehearsal. Baryshnikov chose her to perform the Pas d’Esclave from “Le Corsaire” with the acknowledged “Russian Adonis,” Alexander Godunov. After that, Jaffe worked “so hard because I kept thinking I have to live up to my name.” That meant Pilates at 8 a.m., working with a dramaturg (to enhance her theatrical skills), Gyrotonic, reading voraciously, visiting museums. “I was doing everything I could because I was surrounded by all those stars. I wanted to be one of them.” At first she felt that stars like Natalia Makarova had a lot to say, but she didn’t. “One day I woke up and said, ‘I have this really rich and full life. And maybe I’m not going to say things the way Makarova says. But I’m going say it the way Jaffe says it. It was the beginning of coming into an acceptance of who I was and not trying to imitate others. That started a very different experience of my life as a dancer.’”

Misha. “We were never friends. I never carried on a conversation with him outside the company.” But she “knew” him. “I was always looking out of the corner of my eye to see if he was pleased. Only as I got older did I realize that he protected me. He believed in me. He had confidence in me. When I was younger, I didn’t have those things for myself. When he left [the company], I had to develop those attributes.”

Farewell. Jaffe was scheduled to perform the title role of “Giselle” for her farewell performance, which, after a 22-year career, still took on a surreal quality. Already the company had lined up to perform with her. Star Ethan Stiefel as her Albrecht. Star Julio Bocca as Hilarion. Star Angel Corella as “Hilarion’s assistant.” Extraordinary character dancer Kathleen Moore came out of retirement to portray her mother. “These major people were surrounding me onstage.” At the last rehearsal, “people were coming up to me crying and hugging me — I was exhausted before the show started.” The entire company turned out to watch the rehearsal. Of course, the performance itself was sold out. Partners from the past brought her flowers that accumulated to five feet in depth, with the applause lasting for 40 minutes. “I was overwhelmed by the amount of love shown by these people. It was like The Truman Show — they watched me grow up onstage.” At first she was picking apart her performance. But then Jaffe thought, “How many people on earth get to experience this? So I soaked it up through my pores, like a sponge, you know, took in the appreciation. I was not going to be unconscious for this — I am going to be present. And so I was.”

After ABT. What next? Jaffe had some money to carry her over for a while. She said to herself, “Maybe I’ll figure out what to do.” Two weeks later she was on a private jet with the new chairman of the board at ABT, Lewis Ranieri, on her way to a big outdoor party in California. By the end of the flight, he had offered her a job to work with him, “someone to bounce stuff off of. What the heck? I didn’t have anything else planned.” So she started seeing the back end of a ballet company. “It was a great learning experience, so it was fascinating for me. The hardest part was sitting all day. It was painful,” like the Hulk returning to his human form. “My hip hurt. My knees hurt.”

Back to dance. But then she was offered a position at ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. “I was pragmatic about myself. I was too self-centered; why would I want to help somebody else?” Director John Meehan said, “Why don’t you just try it?” It turned out she felt she was “pretty good at it because I was analytical as a dancer. And I was very focused on good placement, healthy alignment, healthy muscle balance over many years studying that for myself. A couple of months later, I fell madly in love with helping young people. It was a surprise! Enhancing other people was incredibly satisfying. She moved on to become a ballet master and opened her own studio. Soon she joined University of North Carolina School for the Arts and became dean, where she oversaw teaching plans, fundraising, creating programs and more. 

Pittsburgh. “People said, ‘You know, you should be a director some day.’” Jaffe put that at the back of her mind. Academia had its own challenges, particularly the bureaucracy. Then the PBT position opened up. So she took a look at the company and read all about it. The more she studied, she reacted, “Wow! That is a really nice company! And there you go, I am very happily the artistic director of PBT. It’s got a vast repertory and Pittsburgh is a vibrant town, a very cultural town.”

So this city girl found herself here. Is she seeing much of it? I don’t know — there was the pandemic and these days she is working night and day on her new “Swan Lake.”

But we’ll get an even grander vision of her with upcoming staging at the Benedum Center. Stay tuned for Part Two of The Jaffe Effect, coming ASAP.