Jaffe's Final Bow
In a rehearsal studio at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Susan Jaffe sat on the floor applying a second skin product and bit of masking tape to her toes and then folded what looked to be a "handi-wipe" towel around each foot before slipping them into a brand new pair of pointe shoes.
Jaffe pulled at the elastic drawstring of each shoe as if in a tug-of-war. Snapping one, she verbalized her disgust..."No time for a replacement," she stated hoping the shoe would not come loose during a rehearsal of the pas de deux from "The Sleeping Beauty" with partner Carlos Acosta.
In a brown top, white tutu and white leg warmers, Jaffe cut through air with precision and grace during the rehearsal.
"That's too fast," sounded Jaffe as she stopped dancing to tweak the playing pace of her musical accompanist. "That's an over-correction," she scolded after starting and stopping again. Jaffe had no qualms about taking charge in the rehearsal and it was easy to see the drive and determination in her that had gotten her to the pinnacle of her profession.
Jaffe's rehearsal intensity was tempered by a boisterous laugh, big bright eyes, and a girlish smile that seemed to invite everyone around her to love her - which is precisely what her fans have been doing for more than two decades.
A native of Washington D. C., the plucky Jaffe joined ABT II in 1978 and debuted with the first company in 1980, dancing the 'Pas d' Esclave' from "Le Corsaire" with Alexander Godunov.
Over her twenty-two years with ABT she has danced lead roles in countless ballets including "Anastasia," "La Bayadère," "Coppélia," "Swan Lake," "La Sylphide," "Giselle," "The Sleeping Beauty," "Romeo and Juliet," "The Merry Widow," "Don Quixote," "Fall River Legend," "The Nutcracker," "Apollo," and "Manon."
A guest artist with many of the world's elite ballet companies including the Kirov Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, La Scala, and The Royal Ballet, Jaffe's storied career has solidified her as one of America's Prima Ballerina Assolutas.
Just weeks before her final performance as a member of American Ballet Theatre, I sat down with Jaffe in her MET dressing room to discuss her career, her retirement, and what was next for the woman they call "La Jaffe."
Steve Sucato: Why did you start taking dance?
Susan Jaffe: My mother had been taking my brothers to the YMCA to take archery and she asked me if I was interested in doing something there. I told her I was and she enrolled me in a modern dance class -- I hated it. I was a child that grew up wanting to be a princess or a movie star. I liked glamorous things and modern dance was not glamorous to me. At the end of that year the YMCA had a recital and I saw the ballet class, I loved it. The dancers looked so pretty in their pink tights with their hair pulled back and I loved how the pointe shoes looked. I told my mother that was what I wanted to do. So the next year I started in ballet and not long after that my teacher told me I needed to go to a proper ballet school.
SS: Tell me about your training at Maryland Youth Ballet?
SJ: Hortensia Fonseca was my teacher and I remember her creating lots of storybook ballets for us to dance in. They had names like "Coronation of the Dragon Fly Queen" and "The Enchanted Clock" ... she designed all the costumes and did just about everything. It was an incredible place for a child.
SS: Did she teach a particular technique?
SJ: She taught a mix that included the Cecchetti method. She exposed us to so much...she was a great teacher.
SS: When did you first realize you wanted a career in dance?
SJ: I think when I was still at the YMCA. I had a dream that I was a ballerina in a ballet and I loved it. I was in the center and everyone was dancing around me. When I woke up the next morning my legs were killing me like I had danced all night. After that dream I knew that I was going to be a ballerina and there was no stopping me.
SS: Was there anyone when you were growing up that you admired or tried to emulate as a dancer?
SJ: Once I was at the Kennedy Center watching Cynthia Gregory in "Swan Lake." It was at the end of the second act and the struggle between the main characters...before she turned back into a swan. It was the most amazing thing I ever saw. The entire audience all at once loudly gasped and then stood up wildly applauding. I mean it wasn't like she was doing thirty-two double fouetté turns, or jumping really high in the air, but she had this incredible magic. After that I wanted to be just like Cynthia Gregory. When we were in the company together she was always so nice to me. I remember her looking down at me -- she was very tall -- and saying "You remind me of myself." I loved her. I also thought Natasha Makarova and Gelsey Kirkland were incredible.
SS: When did you realize that dancing was a job?
SJ: I never thought of it as a job. Sure you have to go to rehearsal and sometimes it hurts, but I have always had the most incredible passion for it and it never occurred to me that dancing was a job.
SS: Of the many dance partners you have had, who made you feel the most comfortable?
SJ: Jose Carreño.
SS: What about him made you feel that way?
SJ: When he came on the scene I had been dancing with taller more lyrical types and with Jose all of a sudden there was this Cuban male energy behind me. It wasn't just that he was such a great dancer; I have danced with great dancers and not so great ones. It was that our energy together was so good...we really clicked. The way he partnered me felt so comfortable and secure. I could come flying at him in any weird position and he would make me look beautiful.
SS:: What ballets would you have liked to have done but didn't?
SJ: I would have loved to have done "A Month in the Country," "Mayerling," "Pillar of Fire"...there are so many.
SS:: Any choreographers you would have liked to have worked with?
SJ: I would love to have done more with (Jifii) Kylian. I think he is from another planet. Two years ago I thought about calling him and asking him if I could lie about my age and dance in his over forty group.
SS: What was the defining moment in your dance career?
SJ: Probably a "Swan Lake" performance I did with Jose (Carreño) in 1996. I remember Martine van Hamel asking me how I was feeling and I told her I was so excited about dancing and she said, "You are? For 'Swan Lake?'" I was so at ease and so happy dancing that night. I remember thinking this is what I had worked for all these years, to be able to have my physicality say what I wanted it to say and have a really good time doing it.
SS: You have had a lot of people describe you as a dancer, how do you see yourself as a dancer?
SJ: I don't see myself as a typical ballerina. A lot of ballerinas are very soft...I am not saying that I am not feminine, but I have a lot of male energy, fire, and tomboy aspects to myself that come out in my dancing. In a lot of ways I have had to fight against my own type to get roles. I think people shied away from me because they could not see me in certain roles. I would always fight to get those roles and when I got them they ended up being really suited to me. I see myself as very lyrical but I can also be bravura like in "Don Quixote." I am a pure classicist.
SS: What in your technique do you think you do best?
SJ: My trick step is Arabesque.
SS: You have been credited with saying that "people tend to look at dancers like they are little jewels, little cardboard cutouts, yet they have blood and guts and go through hell." Do you think you have contributed to those notions by making your dancing seem so effortless and look so beautiful?
SJ: That is what I am supposed to do. What I was trying to say was that I think that people do not understand what the life is like. It is one of the hardest things to do. It is about trying to get your body to do something that is next to impossible while fighting all of your demons. I think so many things in people's lives go undetected, things about themselves they don't have to face...things a dancer cannot ignore about themselves.
SS: What is your favorite thing someone said or wrote about you?
SJ: Last year Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times) wrote about my Tatiana in "Onegin." It was the kind of review I always wanted. She talked about how I interpreted the role and that I was dazzling and deep. I like it when people really get what I was shooting for in a performance.
SS: What was the worst thing someone said or wrote about you?
SJ: I think I was nineteen and had done my first "Swan Lake" at ABT and a reviewer wrote an entire piece on how bad I was, and that Cynthia Gregory had more talent in her pinky finger than I would ever have.
SS: Fellow dancers like Sandra Brown have expressed how they will miss you when you retire. Of the dancers that have come before you at ABT, whom do you miss?
SJ: I miss Patrick Bissell, I miss Cynthia Gregory and Cynthia Harvey, I miss seeing Natasha Makarova dance, and I miss Kathy Moore terribly, I loved her dancing.
SS: Why retire now?
SJ: One of the biggest reasons I decided to leave ABT so soon -- not that I am that young, but a lot of ballerinas have gone at least another five years -- is that I love dramatic work. It turns me on so much. I love to work with characters. I feel there is not enough of that kind of work here (ABT). It is nice to do "Nutcracker" and "Sleeping Beauty," but I have been doing them for so long. There are other dramatic ballets out there I'd like to do but they cost a lot of money to bring in. I just feel I can no longer wait around hoping that someday a few of them will be brought in. I need to take control of my life and do something creative, something new. I guess people may see me as being really spoiled for leaving, but if you don't have creativity in your life, what do you really have?
SS: What do you plan to do after you retire?
SJ: A Canadian playwright has written a play for me and one other person and we are trying to get it produced. I also have another project in the works but I can't really discuss it yet.
SS: Any final thoughts?
SJ: There were a lot of reasons why I danced, for me the most important of them was to be able to touch people. I wanted to be like a mirror to the audience showing them who they are. I feel my life as a dancer was worth it if I could have been that for a few people.
Jaffe made her final appearance as a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre on June 24, 2002 dancing the lead in "Giselle" with partner Jose Manuel Carreño. Of the performance Anna Kisselgoff wrote in The New York Times: "Rising to the extra-special occasion, Ms. Jaffe as Giselle and Jose Manuel Carreño as Albrecht filled the stage with love and tenderness."
One last time Jaffe became a mirror to the audience showing them who they were. And as she acknowledged their applause for the last time, one wonders if she saw her own reflection in their eyes, and recognized the joy and fascination she had brought to so many of them for so long.
Steve Sucato is a former dancer turned writer/critic living in Erie, Pennsylvania. He regularly writes for several newspapers and national dance publications. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of
the Dance Critics Association, an international association of dance journalists. •