THE STUTTGART BALLET MOURNS THE PASSING OF DIETER GRAEFE
Portrait: Dieter Graefe Photo Hannes Kilian
Dieter Graefe, former Administrator of the Stuttgart Ballet and holder of the rights to John Cranko’s ballets, passed away in Stuttgart on Saturday, April 20. As Cranko's heir, he ensured that, after the South African-British choreographer’s unexpected early death, his works were performed by companies worldwide and became classics of the international ballet repertoire. Thanks to Graefe, Cranko's masterpiece Onegin, for example, is one of the most popular ballets in the world today. Dieter Graefe was born in Königsberg in 1939 and trained as a shipping agent in Hamburg. In 1962, one year after Cranko’s arrival in Stuttgart, he became Cranko's private secretary, handling German correspondence and organizational tasks for him. In 1966, Graefe was appointed Cranko’s administrative assistant and scheduler at the Stuttgart Ballet/ Staatstheater Stuttgart, where he was entrusted with administrative tasks for the ballet company and for John Cranko in addition to organizing tours. After Cranko's death in 1973, Graefe, together with ballet mistress Anne Woolliams, was entrusted with the provisional direction of the Stuttgart Ballet until Glen Tetley became director a year later. Under Tetley, Graefe remained Administrator, during Marcia Haydée's tenure as director he was promoted to deputy artistic director of the Stuttgart Ballet. In 1985 he moved to Canada with his life-partner Reid Anderson; in 1996 they both returned to Stuttgart when Anderson assumed the directorship of the Stuttgart Ballet. In his will, Cranko had named his long-time friend and assistant as the heir to his estate and the rights to his ballets. Since then, Graefe has granted the licenses for Cranko's works outside of Stuttgart and Munich. Through decades of careful staging by highly qualified choreologists and coaches - most of whom had worked directly with Cranko or with the dancers in the original casts - he ensured that Crankos pieces were performed true to the work. Over the last 50 years, many works by Cranko but especially his three great narrative ballets Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew and, above all, Onegin were and are danced by many renowned companies worldwide, including the Bolshoi Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Ballet, La Scala Ballet in Milan, the American Ballet Theater, the National Ballet of China and the Tokyo Ballet, to name but a few. It is thanks to Graefe’s careful, dedicated administration that Cranko's ballets are still so sought after and widely performed outside of Stuttgart today. In 2020, together with Reid Anderson, Graefe founded the John Cranko Trust which already receives all royalties - and in future all the other income - from Cranko's estate with all proceeds going to the John Cranko School. Tamas Detrich, Artistic Director of the Stuttgart Ballet, comments on this loss of a member of the Stuttgart Ballet family: "Dieter Graefe's contribution to the Stuttgart Ballet and the work of John Cranko can hardly be measured. He was involved in building up our company under John Cranko and through his subsequent work as rights holder of the works outside Stuttgart, these wonderful ballets created here are still danced by the world's most renowned companies today. We owe him a great deal and will miss him very much."
Scottish Ballet’s Founder Director Peter Darrell’s Tales of Hoffmann to be performed in Tokyo
What: Tales of Hoffmann Where: New National Theatre, Tokyo When: 23rd, 24th, 25th February (Japan time zone)
Ayako Ono as Antonia, Yudai Fukuoka as Hoffmann and Takuya Wajima as Antonia's Father Photo:Takashi Shikama
Peter Darrell CBE (1929-1987) was the founder Director of Scottish Ballet (formed by transferring Bristol’s Western Theatre Ballet to Glasgow in 1969). He was one of the most prolific choreographers of his generation pioneering a repertoire of ballets tackling subjects usually seen in films and plays, but not in the medium of dance. The first ballet to be created using modern rock music, was Mods and Rockers to Beatles music in 1963 and Houseparty in 1964 was the first ballet commissioned for television in this country. The Tales of Hoffmann is probably one of the finest examples of Darrell’s long narrative works, illustrating his unique approach to story-telling. It was first performed by Scottish Theatre Ballet in 1972 and has also been performed by American Ballet Theatre in New York; by the Ballet of the National Theatre, Belgrade; the Ballet of the National Theatre in Prague; the Australian Ballet; Asami Maki Ballet Company, Tokyo; Hong Kong Ballet and The National Ballet of Japan. Noriko Ohara OBE (ex-Principal Dancer of Scottish Ballet and Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Japan) and Kenn Burke (Former Soloist of Scottish Ballet, Artistic Director of Dance at the Dance School of Scotland) are heading for Tokyo at the end of January to oversee the remounting of Darrell’s Tales of Hoffmann which will be performed by the National Ballet of Japan at the New National Theatre, Tokyo. Tales of Hoffmann was first staged as a new production by The National Ballet of Japan in 2015. The Tales of Hoffmann portrays an intense human drama through the love affairs of the protagonist Hoffmann, demanding great expressiveness and artistry on the part of the dancers. The love motifs are diverse and alluring, woven throughout the performance by the various characters, from the protagonist Hoffmann, shown from adolescence through to his later years, the three seductive women who steal Hoffmann's heart, and the devil, who appears in different forms. It is a romantic fantasy with a touch of the forlorn, complemented by beautifully flowing and variegated music by Jacques Offenbach.
Noriko Ohara OBE Ohara was born in Tokyo in 1943. She began training in ballet at the age of four years, under Tachinaba Akiko. She also trained with Alexandra Danilova. At age 18, she joined the Asami Maki Ballet. She moved to New York in 1971 to further her training, then to London in 1974 to join the New London Ballet. After a season with the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet), she joined the Scottish Ballet in 1976 as a principal dancer. She briefly danced with the Basel Ballet in 1977. She returned to the Scottish Ballet in 1978, where she remained until 1995. Ohara's roles included Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Carmen in Carmen, Anna Karenina in Anna Karenina, the Sugar Plum and Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, The Sylph in Les Sylphides. In 1999, Ohara joined the New National Theatre Ballet (now the National Ballet of Japan) as its ballet mistress. She was named assistant artistic director in 2010. In 2014, she was promoted to artistic director of the dance department, which includes the National Ballet of Japan and contemporary dance programming. In 2016, her term was renewed until August 31, 2020.
Kenn Burke After completing his training at the Royal Ballet School he joined Scottish Ballet, where he quickly rose through the ranks. During his time with the company he danced leading roles in Othello, Romeo and Juliet, La Spectre de la Rose, Swan lake Tales of Hoffmann, Nutcracker and many other works. He appeared as a guest artist with various companies, including National Ballet of Portugal. In 1988 he was invited to join Hong Kong Ballet as a Principal Dancer. Whilst still with the company he staged Jack Carter's ‘Three Dances to Japanese Music’ and Peter Darrell’s ‘Nutcracker’. He returned to Scottish Ballet in 1990 and was appointed Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet 2, which performed small scale touring works throughout the UK, China and Malaysia. In 1992 he was then made Assistant Artistic Director under Galina Samsova until 1997 when he became Acting Artistic Director. Since leaving Scottish Ballet he assisted Galina Samsova in staging her productions of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, staged La Spectre de la Rose for the Royal Ballet and is a guest teacher for the Teatro dell ‘Opera in Rome. Kenn was appointed Artistic Director of Dance at the Dance School of Scotland in 2011. In 2015 and 2018 he went to Japan to produce Peter Darrell’s Tales of Hoffmann for the New National Theatre Ballet Tokyo.
Yudai Fukuoka as Hoffmann Photo: Takashi Shikama
English National Ballet’s New Home
by Alastair Macaulay
Cynthia Harvey, Aaron Watkin, and Victoria Simon
This photograph shows Cynthia Harvey (left), Aaron Watkin (centre), and Victoria Simon (right), speaking about Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations” (1947) at tonight’s donors’ evening in the ground-floor studio theatre of English National Ballet’s new building. Harvey, who often danced the ballerina in “Theme and Variations” (one of the most taxing roles in the repertory) with American Ballet Theatre, is currently coaching it for today’s ENB ballerinas (there are four casts); Watkin, who only began full-time work as ENB artistic director a few weeks ago, is presenting his first public event at the company’s new home; Simon is currently staging the ballet for the Balanchine Trust - the company dances it at Sadler’s Wells in the "Our Voices" programme that opens on September 21. Simon is a phenomenon. A New Yorker by birth, she began studying at the School of American Ballet at age seven in the late 1940s. (She believes she may have seen Alicia Alonso and Igor Youskevitch dance “Theme and Variations,” but she was too small to be sure now.) While she was still a child, she was one of the original Candy Cane dancers in George Balanchine’s 1954 new production of “The Nutcracker” for New York City Ballet; later that decade, when she was seventeen, she became an apprentice to that company; when she was eighteen, she became a member. In 1960, when Balanchine staged “Theme and Variations” for the first time for his own company, New York City Ballet, she was in the cast. (Violette Verdy and Edward Villella were the lead couple.) In 1961, she created one of the original high-exposure solo variations In Balanchine’s “Raymonda Variations”. (She remembers Frederick Ashton, probably during a Royal Ballet tour of North America, watching one of the rehearsals.) When New York City Ballet moved to Lincoln Center in 1964, she was a part of it, still in her twenties. But Simon was one of those dancers who remembered not only her own role but everyone else’s too. Balanchine spotted this in her. In 1965, he asked her to stage his entire two-act “Nutcracker” for a company in Germany. She had a very young boy in the role of the Little Prince. In Act Two, he simply could not remember the (French) grammar of the mime monologue (“She me rescued”); so, she solved the dilemma by reorganizing the gestures into a grammar that worked for him. When Balanchine arrived to survey her work, he at once approved her solution. She, still in her twenties, then became a regular stager of Balanchine’s ballets around the world. Probably now in her early eighties, she’s now staged Balanchine ballets on every continent: she loves travel, and she loves dancers. She’s still at it, with energy, humour, courtesy, and warmth. This morning, she taught company class in Balanchine style, for seventy-five minutes, After half an hour’s break for coffee, when she joined me, she taught the corps and demi-soloists the most complex part of the “Theme and Variations” finale in an hour’s rehearsal, absolutely showing everyone the challenges and rewards of the complex rhythms and geometries. After that, without a pause, she led me through to another studio, where she coached one tall couple (Sangeun Lee, Korean and six foot tall on flat foot, and the taller Gareth Haw, Welsh, and Royal Ballet School trained; both danced for Watkin in the Dresden Semperoperballett for several years) in the long and demanding pas de deux. During all this, Simon never sat down once, often demonstrated, and kept up the same effortless supply of courtesy, humour, and enthusiasm. In the afternoon, she then took a break for three hours, before returning for this evening’s function, in which she’s coached the Ukrainian Katja Khaniukova ballerina in the ballerina’s second virtuoso variation, followed by Lee and Haw in the pas de deux. She and Harvey interact in conversation with the same kind of intelligent warmth. Almost from the start of the conversation, Watkin explains two things of note: the kind of human warmth that Simon and Harvey exude is what he wants around English National Ballet; and he means this Balanchine staging to be the first of others. ""(I remember it, as London Festival Ballet in the last century, dancing “Bourrée Fantasque” in the 1970s and “Symphony in C” in the 1980s. . It has danced “Apollo” since 1988 and “Who Cares?” this century, as my colleague Kevin Ng reminds me. But now we have reason to hope for more.)"" Thursday, 31 August Biography Victoria Simon was one of the first dancers selected by George Balanchine to re-stage his ballets. In 1965, recognizing her talent for learning roles quickly, Balanchine asked her to stage The Nutcracker in Cologne, Germany. Now, as Ballet Mistress for the George Balanchine Trust, she has staged over 25 Balanchine ballets for more than 80 companies on every continent in the world. Her love for the ballets and respect for the choreography are evident in her stagings. With her eye for detail and emphasis on musicality, Simon is one of the most sought after and respected re-creators of George Balanchine’s masterpieces. Simon began her study of ballet in New York City at the School of American Ballet and was a Candy Cane in Balanchine’s original production of The Nutcracker. She became an apprentice with New York City Ballet at the age of 17, and a few months later, she was invited to join the company. She went on to become a soloist before taking on the role as Balanchine’s representative around the world. In 1981, she began to choreograph her own ballets and created works for Ballet Met, Nashville Ballet, Des Moines Ballet, Charleston Ballet Theatre, and a workshop at the School of American Ballet. She is also in great demand as a teacher of the Balanchine style and technique.
Biography
Post scriptum: English National Ballet’s new home, completed not long before the pandemic, is an exceptional achievement: Tamara Rojo, artistic director of English National Ballet who brought this to pass, has left the company an enduring and important legacy. It’s on City Island, a newly redeveloped part of east London many of us have never previously visited - it’s on the Leamouth Peninsula, where the tidal river Leath does its final meander before reaching the Thames Estuary.
Gus Solomons Jr.
Gus Solomons Jr. (April 27, 1940–August 11, 2023) was an accomplished dancer, choreographer, dance critic, and actor. He was a leading figure in postmodern and experimental dance.
Dancer
Gus Solomons Jr., born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, began his serious dance training in modern dance and ballet while an undergraduate architecture student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was a member of a local dance company called Dance Makers, and it was there where he began his experimental solo choreography. A year after graduating from MIT with a Bachelor of Architecture degree, Solomons moved to New York City with a "burning itch to perform and make dances". In 1962, he worked alongside other dance experimentalists at a studio in New York City. According to Solomons, quoted in Banes, they wanted to "find new forms, ways of making dances that were different from those of our mentors". Although he was interested in deconstructing forms and structures, he was also passionate about technical dancing. He performed with the companies of Pearl Lang, Donald McKayle, Joyce Trisler, Paul Sanasardo, and Martha Graham, although his most significant association during this period was with Merce Cunningham and Company from 1965 to 1968.
Choreographer
In 1972, Solomons founded the Gus Solomons Company/Dance, whose repertoire consisted of detailed and analytical compositions that were conceived as "melted architecture", drawing from his experience as an architecture student at MIT. He undertook a clinical, postmodern approach to dance making that linked a fascination with puzzles and architectural design to the process of "kinetic autobiography". During an interview with Open Door, the MIT newspaper, Solomons compared movement design to building design in principle, with the exception that dance was not fixed in time.[6] Solomons' choreographies, of which there are more than 165, were created to suit the dancers, not vice versa, because he was concerned with how the dancers felt while executing the movement. From the outset, Solomons saw the potential of integrating dance and video. According to Solomons, one of his most exciting projects was the dual-screen video-dance City/Motion/Space/Game produced in 1968 by Rick Hauser at WGBH-TV in Boston. This double-channel work was a collaborative work of Solomons, writer Mary Feldhaus-Weber, and composer John Morris. City/Motion/Space/Game, in its half-hour duration, was an "investigation of the unique properties of the video medium that are unlike live performance: reduced scale, flattening of spatial dimensions, and accelerated visual space".
Dance critic
Forty years later, Solomons continued to make a living from dancing, choreographing, experimenting, and critiquing dance. Since 1980, he devoted some of his time to dance criticism, and his reviews have appeared in The Village Voice, Ballet News, Attitude, Dance Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.
Message from the editor of danse.org: We are deeply saddened by the news that Gus Solomons Jr. has passed away, August 11th, 2023. A fine artist, and marvelous dancer.
Leslie Caron
HAPPY 92nd BIRTHDAY to LESLIE CARON!!
Career years: 1951 - present Born Leslie Claire Margaret Caron, French and American actress and dancer. She is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Caron began her career as a ballerina. She made her film debut in the musical An American in Paris (1951), followed by roles in The Man with a Cloak (1951), Glory Alley (1952) and The Story of Three Loves (1953), before her role of an orphan in Lili (also 1953), which earned her the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and garnered nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. As a leading lady, Caron starred in films such as The Glass Slipper (1955), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Gigi (1958), Fanny (1961), both of which earned her Golden Globe nominations, Guns of Darkness (1962), The L-Shaped Room (1962), Father Goose (1964) and A Very Special Favor (1965). For her role as a single pregnant woman in The L-Shaped Room, Caron, in addition to receiving a second Academy Award nomination, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and a second BAFTA Award. Caron's other roles include Is Paris Burning? (1966), The Man Who Loved Women (1977), Valentino (1977), Damage (1992), Funny Bones (1995), Chocolat (2000) and Le Divorce (2003). In 2007, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for portraying a rape victim in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Early life and family - Caron was born July 1, 1931, in Boulogne-sur-Seine, Seine (now Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine), the daughter of Margaret (née Petit), a Franco-American dancer on Broadway, and Claude Caron, a French chemist, pharmacist, perfumer and boutique owner. Claude Caron was the founder of the artisanal perfumier Guermantes. While her older brother, Aimery Caron, became a chemist like their father, Leslie was prepared for a performing career from childhood by her mother. The family lost its wealth during World War II and could not provide a dowry for Caron. "My mother said: 'There's only one profession that leads you to marrying money and becoming a princess or duchess, and that's ballet.' ... My grandfather whispered heavily: 'Margaret, you want your daughter to be a whore?' I heard it. This has always followed me". Of the lost fortune, Caron recalled, "My mother died of it". Her mother, who had grown up in poverty, could not cope with their reduced circumstances. She became depressed and an alcoholic and, at age 67, killed herself. Career - Caron was initially a ballerina. Gene Kelly discovered her in the Roland Petit company "Ballet des Champs Elysées" and cast her to appear opposite him in the musical An American in Paris (1951), a role for which a pregnant Cyd Charisse was originally cast. The prosperity, sunshine and abundance of California was a cultural shock to Caron. She had lived in Paris during the German occupation, which left her malnourished and anemic. She later remarked how nice people were in comparison to wartime Paris, in which poverty and deprivation had caused people to be bitter and violent. She had a friendly relationship with Kelly, who nicknamed her "Lester the Pester" and "kid". Kelly helped the inexperienced Caron—who had never spoken on stage—adjust to filmmaking. Her role led to a seven-year MGM contract. The films which followed included the musical The Glass Slipper (1955) and the drama The Man with a Cloak (1951), with Joseph Cotten and Barbara Stanwyck. Still, Caron has said of herself: "Unfortunately, Hollywood considers musical dancers as hoofers." She also starred in the musicals Lili (1953, receiving an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination), with Mel Ferrer; Daddy Long Legs (1955), with Fred Astaire; and Gigi (1958) with Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier. Dissatisfied with her career despite her success ("I thought musicals were futile and silly", she said in 2021; "I appreciate them better now"), Caron studied the Stanislavski method. In the 1960s and thereafter, Caron worked in European films as well. For her performance in the British drama The L-Shaped Room (1962), she won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress and the Golden Globe and was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Her other film assignments in this period included Father Goose (1964) with Cary Grant; Ken Russell's Valentino (1977), in the role of silent-screen legend Alla Nazimova; and Louis Malle's Damage (1992). Sometime in 1970, Caron was one of the many actresses considered for the lead role of Eglantine Price in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, losing the role to British actress Angela Lansbury. In 1967, she was a member of the jury of the 5th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF). In 1989, she was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. Caron returned to France in the early 1970s, which she later said was a mistake. "They adore someone who's really British or really American", Caron said, "but somebody who's French and has made it in Hollywood – and I was the only one who had really made it in a big way – they can't forgive". During the 1980s, she appeared in several episodes of the soap opera Falcon Crest as Nicole Sauguet. Caron is one of the few actresses from the classic era of MGM musicals who are still active in film — a group that includes Rita Moreno, Margaret O’Brien, and June Lockhart. Caron's later credits include Funny Bones (1995) with Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt; The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) with Judi Dench and Cleo Laine; Chocolat (2000) and Le Divorce (2003), directed by James Ivory, with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. On June 30, 2003, Caron traveled to San Francisco to appear as the special guest star in The Songs of Alan Jay Lerner: I Remember It Well, a retrospective concert staged by San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon Company. In 2007, her guest appearance on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. On April 27, 2009, Caron traveled to New York as an honored guest at a tribute to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe at the Paley Center for Media. For her contributions to the film industry, Caron was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 8, 2009, with a motion pictures star located at 6153 Hollywood Boulevard. In February 2010, she played Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, which also featured Greta Scacchi and Lambert Wilson. In 2016, Caron appeared in the ITV television series The Durrells (produced by her son Christopher Hall) as the Countess Mavrodaki. Veteran documentarian Larry Weinstein's Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on June 28, 2016. Personal life - In September 1951, Caron married American George Hormel II, a grandson of George A. Hormel, the founder of the Hormel meat-packing company. They divorced in 1954. During that period, while under contract to MGM, she lived in Laurel Canyon in a Normandie style 1927 mansion near the country store on Laurel Canyon Blvd. One bedroom was all mirrored for her dancing rehearsals. Her second husband was British theatre director Peter Hall. They married in 1956 and had two children: Christopher John Hall, a television drama producer, and Jennifer Caron Hall, a writer, painter, and actress. Her son-in-law, married to Jennifer, is Glenn Wilhide, a producer and screenwriter. Caron had an affair with Warren Beatty in 1961. When she and Hall divorced in 1965, Beatty was named as a co-respondent and was ordered by the London court to pay the costs of the case. In 1969, Caron married Michael Laughlin, the producer of the film Two-Lane Blacktop; the couple divorced in 1980. Caron was also romantically linked to Dutch television actor Robert Wolders from 1994 to 1995. From 1981, she rented and lived for a few years in a mill (the "Moulin Neuf") in the French village of Chaumot, Yonne, which had belonged to Prince Francis Xavier of Saxony in the late 18th century, and which depended on his princely castle. From June 1993 until September 2009, Caron owned and operated the hotel and restaurant Auberge la Lucarne aux Chouettes (The Owls' Nest), in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, about 130 km (80 mi) south of Paris. Caron's mother had committed suicide in her 60s; suffering from a lifetime of depression, Caron also considered doing so in 1995. She was hospitalized for a month and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous. Unhappy with the lack of acting opportunities in France, she returned to England in 2013. In her autobiography, Thank Heaven, she states that she obtained American citizenship in time to vote for Barack Obama for president. In October 2021, she was chosen to receive the Oldie of the Year Award by The Oldie magazine. It was initially offered to Queen Elizabeth II, who had declined it on the grounds that she did not meet the criteria, even though she was five years older than Caron.
Message from the editor of danse.org: We are deeply saddened by the news that Lynn Seymour has passed away, March 7th, 2023, at the age of 83. A fine artist, and marvelous dancer.
Message from the National Ballet of England: We are deeply saddened by the news that our President and former Artistic Director, Dame Beryl Grey has passed away at the age of 95. A dedicated ambassador for the Company, she will be remembered for her significant legacy and immeasurable contribution to the artform.
Susan Jaffe
Declared by The New York Times as “America’s Quintessential American Ballerina,” Susan Jaffe enjoyed a career as a Principal Dancer at American Ballet Theatre for 22 years. She performed on the international stage with the Royal Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet, La Scala Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, and the English National Ballet. Her versatility as a dancer brought acclaimed interpretations to ballet classics, such as Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, and dramatic works by Agnes de Mille, Antony Tudor, John Cranko, Ronald Hynd, and Kenneth MacMillan. She also worked with many prominent contemporary choreographers of her time, such as Twyla Tharp, Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, Nacho Duato, Mark Morris, Ulysses Dove, and Jiří Kylián.After retiring from the stage in 2002, Jaffe taught in the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and served as an advisor to the chairman of the board of ABT until 2007. In 2010 she became a Director of Repertoire at ABT. Two years later, she was appointed Dean of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) in Winston-Salem, NC, a position she held for eight years. During her tenure at UNCSA, Jaffe and her faculty implemented a syllabus based on the ABT National Training Curriculum and established the Choreographic Institute of UNCSA. Additionally, she raised $3.5 million in endowed scholarships and other scholarships.In 2020 Jaffe was appointed the Artistic Director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. She helped to lead the company through the pandemic with digital programs, outdoor performances, and performances in museums. As audiences began returning to theaters, Jaffe curated programs that included classic ballets and diverse, innovative voices of today.Jaffe was appointed Artistic Director of American Ballet Theatre in December 2022.