TURNING POINTE
The story of how America's prima ballerina came to Princeton. And found herself.
By Sarah Jordan
New Jersey Life, Feb/March 2005-Susan Jaffe, retired principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, curls up elegantly on the sofa at her dance school, Princeton Dance & Theater Studio, as she shares the realities of the transition she made in 2002 from the life of a prima ballerina to the ranks of the unemployed.
“Two months after I retired, I was in some god-awful pretzel position in a yoga class, shaking and cramping, and I remember thinking. “What am I doing? I’ve worked so hard my whole life, why don’t you take a break?” she says.
So she did, And letting go of a dancer’s extreme physical regime was surprisingly…pleasurable.
“I’m happy,” she continues. “I got used to not exercising all day. It was a hard transition, because you’re used to having a certain kind of body and that slowly changes…but you let go of a lot of things.” If Jaffe’s body has changed from her prime dancing days, it’s not easy to tell: She still has the lean, narrow dancer’s figure that any other 42- year-old would kill for. Gone, though, is the long hair, a ballerina “must” for neat and tidy buns, now replaced with a funky pixie shag that sets off her luminous eyes and high, chiseled cheekbones.
Jogging has now become her endorphin-loaded pleasure. “I use it as a meditative practice. I take in the trees and the air. I never had the time to appreciate nature like I do now,” she says. “I don’t have to focus on my foot placement or alignment. I just jog and have a fabulous time breathing hard and sweating.”
The “a-ha” moment in the yoga studio encapsulates Jaffe’s knack for knowing just when to move on, a gift that has marked her career. But the unflinching self-recognition that helps to identify when things are getting stale and need a little reinvention is what you’d expect from a prima ballerina. Dancers religiously scrutinize themselves in studio mirrors, searching for the tiniest flaws in order to elevate and stretch careers often measured in months, not years. This knack helped Jaffe reach the pinnacle of her profession. But perhaps more important, it’s helped her make the leap into life beyond the spotlight.
There’s a lovely stillness about Jaffe, like a wise cat paused, eyes wide and ears pricked up, listening for truths about the life that swirls nearby. There’s no bluster or affectation in her carriage, but rather a simple confidence. This is, after all, the woman who made a name for herself fearlessly tossing off grand jete’ leaps or mesmerizing audiences by being dramatically still during poignant narrative moments. It takes guts to hold an audience motionless with you and let a moment swell in an art form defined by how a body moves. John Meehan, artistic director of education and training at ABT – where Jaffe also teaches – recalls her as a “wonderfully gifted performer who combines a world class ballet technique with exquisite beauty and a generous personality. Hers was art of the utmost glamour.”
“She knows herself,” adds PDT co director Risa Kaplowitz, a longtime Jaffe friend. “She goes into new situations with an open mind, whether it’s a dance rehearsal or a cocktail party. One of her favorite phrases is, ‘with an open heart.’ It’s how she goes about things in life. She’s a true artist because she’s honest.”
Whether it’s plain good judgment or more groovy life forces at work, there’s been a clear trajectory of smart decisions beginning back in her hometown of Bethesda, Maryland. The daughter of a mechanical engineer and an editor, Jaffe started dance lessons at age eight at the local YMCA while her mother took exercise classes. Jaffe soon was smitten with ballet.
But unlike legions of other little girls who don pink leotards and tutus for a few years before the harsh realities of body type and ability set in, Jaffe’s talent, cultivated at Maryland Youth Ballet, was undeniable superior. And it was noticed.
Kaplowitz recalls the “when we were at MYB, Susan’s talent was obvious. For example, the first time we learned how to do pirouettes on pointe. It’s scary, and I practically had a coronary. She does it the first time and does a double turn. The teacher said, ‘Very nice. How about another?’ And she did it again and again. She just had a natural ability to go for it.” At 14, Jaffe left home for New York City to train. By 21, she was a principal at ABT.
“You go along in life, and then things don’t work for you because you’ve outgrown them, “ Jaffe explains with a measured voice. “For awhile, you pretend that they haven’t, but it starts getting uncomfortable, until you’re finally forced to change. With me, I knew at various times that I needed to move on, but it wasn’t a choice. There are lots of choices in life, but life also brings us things, and we must surrender and go with the flow.”
In 1989, ten years into her career, Jaffe’s ABT boss, Mikhail Baryshnikov, gave her the opportunity to be coached by his mentor, Kirov Ballet star Irina Kolpakova. Jaffe leapt at it, and the star of iconic works such as Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, and Sleeping Beauty tossed aside everything she’d known about dancing to start over under the retired Russian star’s tutelage.
“Kolpakova had a purity, a simplicity that I wanted, “ says Jaffe. “The real beauty of an artist comes out when it is as pared down as possible, without lots of fake extra curlicue stuff.”
Her skill at knowing it was time to move on served her again after 22 years of dancing with ABT. “When I was 18, I said I’d never dance past 40. I never wanted to be one of the old people on stage that everybody is biting their lips thinking, ‘Geez, I wish she’d retire.’ So part of it was pride,” explains Jaffe. “I wanted to leave still looking good.”
That led to some soul searching. “I thought, ‘I’m still young and creative, why don’t I just reinvent myself?’ And I left. I had no idea where my next paycheck was coming from or what I was going to do. I just dove off that cliff.”
Two opportunities came, and Jaffe seized them both. First, she was offered a consulting position with ABT by its board chair, Lewis Ranieri. The three-year contract was like a golden retirement parachute. Not only was it lucrative and offering new challenges, but it gave her time and the capital to figure out what was to come next.
The second opportunity came to Jaffe a little later, when, at a Maryland Youth Ballet reunion, she and Kaplowitz began talking about ballet schools. “I was really restless. I was this creative artist all my life, a physical person, and here I was sitting at a desk, and my butt’s getting bigger and bigger,” says Jaffe. “I knew it was absolutely not who I was. And then Risa started talking to me about the school.”
“The school” was Princeton Dance & Theater, and it opened in 2003. Kaplowitz, an area resident hit upon the need for a school of PDT’s caliber while searching for a place for her own daughter to study ballet. After a year of hunting for suitable space, she finally settled on one in Forrestal Village, a Princeton shopping center. Since its founding, PDT’s enrollment has steadily increased; a summer renovation added a third studio, and a dreamteam guest teaching lineup now includes ABT principals Irina Dvorovenko and Max Beloserkovsky, retired stars Cynthia Gregory, Martine van Hamel, and Fernando Bujones, as well as Desmond Richardson and Christian Holder.
Jaffe wants the students to be complete dancers, which is reflected in the course offerings: ballet, jazz, modern, African dance, Flamenco, music appreciation, singing, acting, gyrotonics, pilates and yoga.
“My philosophy is to teach the students not to need you,” she says. ”What better way to build an artist? For that person to know deep within what their talents are, who they are and what they want to say, not ‘What does Susan want me to do?’”
As Jaffe warms up a class of aspiring teens, she’s in serene command, walking up and down the rows, taking in every detail. The hushed reverence of her pupils reflects how seriously they take their study – and their ballet mistress’s wisdom. “I feel blessed. I love my students and everyone around me. It’s a place,” she says, “to call home.”
