When Susan Jaffe took the helm of American Ballet Theatre in January 2023, she inherited more than a storied institution. She stepped into a company at a crossroads: emerging from pandemic-era isolation, confronting aging audiences, and searching for relevance in a dance world increasingly dominated by contemporary movement. At 59, Jaffe became ABT's first female artistic director in its 83-year history—and only the fourth person to hold the title since the company's founding in 1940.
Her predecessor, Kevin McKenzie, departed after 30 years, leaving behind a legacy of technical brilliance and global prestige, but also a repertoire that critics increasingly viewed as museum-like. Jaffe's challenge is not merely preservation but transformation.
From Corps de Ballet to Corner Office
Jaffe's relationship with ABT began four decades ago. She joined the corps de ballet in 1982 at age 19, fresh from training in her native Los Angeles, and climbed to principal dancer within five years. Over two decades, she danced approximately 23 leading roles, including signature interpretations of Giselle and Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff, reviewing her 1996 Giselle, described her performance as "a revelation of controlled abandon"—praise that captured the tension between technical precision and emotional vulnerability that defined her stage presence.
She retired from dancing in 2002, but the specifics of her post-performance career reveal the complexity of her appointment. Her choreographic output remains modest: works including Aurora (2004) for the Washington Ballet and Concerto for Two (2008) for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, plus commissions for New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute and Houston Ballet II. She has held teaching positions at the Juilliard School and served as dean of dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from 2012 to 2020, overseeing a program of roughly 200 students.
This background—distinguished but not prolific as a dancemaker—suggests Jaffe's authority derives less from curatorial experience than from intimate institutional knowledge and performer empathy.
What "New" Means at ABT
In early interviews, Jaffe has sketched priorities that diverge from McKenzie's classical emphasis. She has spoken of wanting audiences to "feel the electricity of risk" and has begun programming works by choreographers outside ballet's Euro-American mainstream, including commissions from Kyle Abraham and Pam Tanowitz for the 2023-2024 season.
The contemporary push addresses a long-standing vulnerability. ABT has historically struggled to cultivate modern repertoire; its identity rests on full-length 19th-century classics that, while commercially reliable, attract aging subscribers and struggle to engage younger demographics. Jaffe's bet is that experimental work—defined here less as avant-garde abstraction than as choreographic voices unfamiliar to ballet audiences—can expand the company's appeal without alienating its base.
She has also emphasized internal culture, promising more collaborative decision-making and opportunities for dancers to contribute creatively. Several company members, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss internal dynamics, described early meetings where Jaffe solicited repertoire suggestions and encouraged dancers to describe their "dream roles"—a departure from McKenzie's more top-down approach.
The Touring Gamble
Jaffe's most concrete early initiative targets ABT's diminished touring footprint. The company performed in just four U.S. cities outside New York during the 2022-2023 season, down from pre-pandemic circuits that included regular stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Jaffe has announced plans to resume international travel in 2024-2025, with confirmed engagements at London's Royal Opera House and tentative discussions for returns to Paris and Tokyo.
The strategy carries financial risk. Touring costs for a company of ABT's size—approximately 80 dancers plus orchestra and production staff—can exceed $1 million per week. But Jaffe and executive director Janet Rollé have indicated they view road performances as relationship-building investments rather than profit centers, particularly for cultivating donor networks in secondary markets.
The Unanswered Questions
Jaffe's tenure remains too young for definitive assessment, and significant uncertainties persist. Her choreographic record offers limited evidence of curatorial vision; she will rely heavily on advisors and guest artists to shape contemporary programming. The company faces structural pressures common to legacy performing arts organizations: an endowment of roughly $70 million that covers only a fraction of operating costs, competition for talent with better-funded New York City Ballet, and the ongoing challenge of diversifying a form historically rooted in European aristocratic tradition.
What distinguishes her appointment is not a revolutionary agenda but the convergence of deep institutional memory with the symbolic weight of gender milestone. Whether that combination proves sufficient to "reinvent" rather than merely steward ABT's legacy will become clearer as her repertoire choices accumulate and her touring ambitions
