Susan Jaffe remembers her reaction when she learned she would be Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s next artistic director.
“I was pacing back and forth. I could feel the tears coming down my face. I was hyperventilating, really,” she recalls. “Then I sat down and said, ‘Wait a minute. I can’t come. We’re in the middle of a pandemic.’”
She took the job anyway, reassured by PBT’s board that the company is financially sound and could weather the COVID-19 storm. Nearly two months in, she’s determined to help make sure that happens.
PBT announced last week that, due to pandemic restrictions and theater closures, it will hold open-air performances in lieu of indoor shows, beginning with shows next month outside its headquarters in the Strip District. For now, the 2021 portion of its schedule will remain as is.
The “Open Air Series” will run Sept. 10-14 and include appearances by Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Opera, Jevon Rushton Group and special guests presented by the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.
PBT’s mainstage season had been set to open in late October with “Balanchine + Tchaikovsky” at Benedum Center. That will become a socially distanced outdoor experience in a new “mobile performing arts venue” outside PBT’s building. “The Nutcracker” is also being reimagined beyond a traditional theater setting.
Executive Director Harris Ferris says Ms. Jaffe is the right choice for artistic director “especially because of the adaptability that’s required with COVID-19 and the programming innovations that are needed. If we can’t get on the stages, we’ve got to figure out another way.”
Doing so comes with many questions, Ms. Jaffe says. How do you get students back in class safely? What about company dancers? Should only those who cohabitate be in a studio at the same time? Dressing rooms, or no dressing rooms?
But she feels good about the progress she and her colleagues have made since she stepped into her role July 1, replacing Terrence S. Orr, who retired after more than 23 years as artistic director. It helps that Ms. Jaffe has had a long career of rising to challenges.
A ballerina is born
The native of Bethesda, Md., got her first taste of dance when her mother enrolled her in a modern class at the local YMCA. At the time, she had three ambitions: to become a famous actress, a singer or a princess.
“I just didn’t feel like the modern class kind of represented all of those aspirations, but then I saw the ballet recital,” Ms. Jaffe recalls. “I said, ‘Oh my goodness. That’s what I want to do.’”
She started taking ballet classes at the YMCA and fell in love with the art form.
“A few months in I had a prophetic dream that I was a ballerina, and I was a star. I actually woke up the next morning and my legs were killing me, as if I had danced all night,” Ms. Jaffe says. “It was like cupid piercing my heart with the arrow.”
She pursued formal training at a dance school that produced several professional dancers. When she was 16, she was invited to join the second company of American Ballet Theatre, where she rose through the ranks to become a principal dancer in the main troupe. She skyrocketed onto the scene at 18 when Mikhail Baryshnikov hand-picked her from the corps de ballet to dance opposite Russian-American actor/dancer Alexander Borisovich Godunov — a star in his own right — at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She had little prep time.
“I went from being a nobody to suddenly somebody everyone was talking about,” Ms. Jaffe says. “I had to work very, very hard to catch up to what I thought people expected of me.”
She was promoted to principal in 1983 and stayed in New York City with ABT until she retired in 2002 at age 40. Her illustrious career earned her the title of “America’s quintessential American ballerina” from The New York Times.
Paying it forward
When Ms. Jaffe’s time on stage ended, her career as an educator, choreographer and administrator began.
“I really felt like it was my responsibility to give back,” she says. “Now I’m in service to ballet and to dance and to nurturing and bringing forth the next generation.”
In 2003-10, she taught in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of American Ballet Theatre and co-founded, owned and directed a dance studio. For two years, she worked as ballet mistress for ABT. She also created works for the company and other arts organizations across the country.
In 2012, Ms. Jaffe became dean of dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. She's also a board member for the Youth America Grand Prix and Dance Magazine Awards.
She was working in North Carolina when she was approached by a search firm about the PBT position.
“I had built a very strong program and was very happy there,” she says. “But then I reminded myself that to be an artistic director was a lifelong dream for me, or at least through my adulthood.”
Her final interview was in March, shortly before COVID-19 shutdowns took effect. Concerned about getting on a plane during a pandemic, she drove to Pittsburgh from North Carolina for a two-day visit. Her personality, background and vision were deemed a match and she was unanimously approved by the board.
“She’s extremely approachable and amicable,” Mr. Ferris says. “She’s got the emotional stability that can steady the ship and keep everyone positively focused.”
Beyond navigating COVID-19, Ms. Jaffe has big ideas for PBT and its growing school. She wants more diversity in choreography, more collaborations with museums and other institutions and someday, perhaps a choreographic festival in Pittsburgh. In regards to the PBT School, additional satellite locations are being considered as a way to bring ballet into more communities.
Ms. Jaffe is widely known for using meditation to stay grounded. She’s developed “The Effect of Intention,” a six-hour online program that she’s implemented in several dance schools and universities. It introduces students to meditation and explores some of the science and research behind it. She may hold public sessions on it here in the future, she says.
She’s looking forward to learning more about her new home and her to-do list includes exploring Pittsburgh’s museums, parks, restaurants and sports stadiums. She’s already smitten by Fox Chapel, where she now resides.
“It’s so nice, and I have this beautiful walk near the Allegheny River. I’ll have to get myself a kayak or a canoe or maybe buy a boat,” she says with a laugh. “I have all these lofty dreams about what I’m going to do.”
Sara Bauknecht: sbauknecht@post-gazette.com or on Twitter and Instagram @SaraB_PG.
First Published: August 31, 2020, 10:08 a.m.