This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is a former principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater who performed iconic roles such as Swan, Lakes, Odette, and O'Dell. At age nineteen, she has danced around the world and performed the repertoire of iconic choreographers such as George Balanshein, Jerome Robbins,
Twyla Tharpe, and Merce Cunningham. Since retiring from the stage, Susan Jaffey has served as dean for the School of Dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts and as artistic director for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. She recently returned to American Ballet Theatre as artistic director in twenty twenty two. Jaffey has coached generations of dancers. Luckily, for her, the desire for young girls to become ballerinas has not changed over time.
Years ago, I owned a ballet school, and I said, the most wonderful thing about owning a ballet school is everybody keeps having babies, and so those babies turn into five and seven year olds and half of them are women, and they want to come to the ballet school. So it's a great business. It was. I don't own it anymore, but it was a great business.
But I wonder what is it about? Because for me, like people say, why do you go to the ballet or why do you go to the symphony and so forth, I said, just see people do things I can't do. It's like sports. Yeah, and I watched those people do that in my mouth is on the floor, you know, yeah, those dancers. When did you realize, were you encouraged, were you that baby of a woman who was a dancer, When did you decide you wanted to do that with your life?
Well? It was interesting because when I was younger, before I even got into dance, I had three aspirations. One was either to be a famous actress or a famous singer, or a princess a real.
One time time.
And so my mother we had a ymca across the street. I was about seven. She would you like to take a dance class for me? Not knowing what any of this was, I said absolutely, So she put me in a modern dance class and we were rolling on the floor and pretending we were ice cream melting or a dog basking the sun. And I remember saying, my little seven year old self said, is this what a princess does? And the answer was no. And across the hallway I
saw the ballet and there they were. They were so pretty with their hair pulled up and the little crisscross ribbons around the ankles. And I said to my mother, that's what I want to do. So what was interesting? She did put me in the ballet class about six months later. And this is true, actually, Angelina Ballerina stole this from my own personal story. I had a prophetic dream and the dream was that I was being raised
in the air by my partner. There was a big spotlight on me and all my classmates were running around me in a circle, and my little eight year old brain I was eight years old at that time, said, oh, I'm a star. And after that you couldn't stop me. If my mother said no, no, no, you can't go to ballet anymore, I would have run away from home. I was possessed. This was it for your happy Yeah, I was posessed. There was no way anybody was going
to stop me. And I remember when I was ten years old, I announced to my mother that I was going to start drinking coffee because I heard it stunted your growth, and I was going, yeah, how were I was ten. I had heard it sunded at your growth and my mom was five eight my father was six foot, and I thought I can't grow because I said to her, I am going to dance with parishna cough, So I have to drink coffee to make sure that I don't grow too tall. And that's what I and my mother
couldn't stop me. I there, I was with an escafe every morning.
Are you kidding them?
I'm not kidding.
How many kids in your family?
I have two brothers.
None of them were they athletes sports.
Wrestling or wrestling. Everybody was also play the opposite of ballot, Yeah, an instrument. You know. My twin brother went into the military. And I said, you know, you and I have the same job, except when I fall down, I get a bad review. But when you fall down, well you're dead. So it's it's the same job, beautifulful heart, So suburban Washington, you grew up in, yeah, Maryland, Maryland.
Now when you're doing your jobs plural teaching and then administrating these big institutions, I've assumed that like sports, there's a lot of sports metaphors here. Obviously, you see people who they all have a basic skill set. They're not going to get in the door, see nless they have there at a certain level. They're athleticism and so forth, and they're balance and all the metrics that you use. What's the magic thing. What's the thing that people have who really are at the top of the game.
Well, the baseline, as you said, is the technique, the right physicality for ballet and the technique and the strength. But above that, it's the movement quality. It's the presence. It's the ability to interpret, the ability to change the air when you move through space. That's that person that when you're sitting in a room and there are sixty people there, you go to that and your eyes go to that person and you say, who's that?
What is who is? Like the movies in the same way.
It can be, but it's it's an It's in the movies too. It's a deeper beauty. It's not just beauty, right right, It's a deeper beauty because there are a lot of very beautiful dancers out there in the world too. But if you don't have the discipline, the will, the drive, the passion and the extra ji sequa, you are not going to get into it.
That's a very good phrase. Deeper beauty. Yeah. Where I was an acting school at NYU at Strasburg, they made us take a movement class. We had to take a movement class. Luba Ash was our movement teacher. She was a ballet dancer and she had a ballet company that was old just for inner city schools, and it was all for fun and for free. And she was this tough woman. She's tough and she said, I want you to be in my dance company. And I was like, oh my god. I thought, wow, this is it. I've
obviously got the magic power, you know. She thinks I'm gonna be you. I'm like twenty one years old, and she goes, yeah, I want you to be in my dance company. And we go to like a school and do a performance and the girl comes running on the stage. She jumps in there. I grab her, I put her up in the air. She rolls into my arms, put her down and we addressed the audience and I run off.
That's that's all I do is lift the girl and the guy, And later on I said to her, go, why did you put me in the ballet company shows? You were the only guy in the class that could lift the girl. You think guys are really puny.
I couldn't lift the girl oftentimes, hell the guys.
Is that true?
Yeah? Yeah? And also, you know, I think people have misunderstanding about men in ballet, you know, when they're in class and as they get older, you know, there are a lot fewer men than there are women. So that's kind of a kid in the candy store for a man, right, you know, And so they you know, because they're more rare, they get more opportunities right away, or if they're a really good job.
It was yeah, I knew Jack very well.
Oh you did.
And my wife and I are big supporters of NDI. And he say that he didn't hesitate to say that. He was like, I was a straight guy in the world of ballet with all these gorgeous dances around me, I was a kid in a candy sto.
Exactly.
He's coming out and saying, exactly, Yeah, Now, when you come up through the ranks and you're dancing, when does the administrative teaching talk to me about in your words, Barishnikov. Good enough, You're like when Bernstein goes on and like I said that he makes his debut when he and he nails it. Yeah, and you're kind of similar. Yeah, you were eighteen years old. Of what happens.
So I joined ABT in August.
They invite you to join, Yes, they.
Invited me to join. I auditioned. I was actually in the second company at the time. Right now it's called the Studio Company, but it was called Ballet Repertory Company. And so I was in the second company, and we heard that Barishnikov was going to take over the directorship of ABT. So he came to our class and watched our class, and at the end of the class, the teacher came up to me and said, Mesha, thinks you're very talented. And I remember thinking, I turned around, like
was she talking to somebody behind me? Like really? I was invited to audition for the company, and it was hundreds of people and we all had this was just like a course line. We had numbers and after every combination they would get rid of fifty people. It was just nail biting and at the end, I don't know, maybe there were five of us standing there in the middle of the room, and we all were offered contracts.
So joined the company.
To join the company. So I joined the company in August of nineteen eighty. This was when we just moved into the Michael Bennett Building downtown. This is where we still are eight ninety Broadway. So I was learning some solo work. I remember one day I was looking at the schedule and it was me and all of the big stars of the company, and I thought, that's a mistake.
There must have been a mistake. And so I went up to the office and I knocked on the door and I said, excuse me, I think you've made a mistake. And the register turned around and looked at me, actually very coldly, and he said it wasn't a mistake. And so I backed out and went to the rehearsal. And this is where we were learning a ballet or a PoTA dua meaning dance for two pod de du called
podsklov from this larger ballet La Corse. There and here was little pon Me from Bethesda, Maryland, with Gudenofflse Kirkland, Fernando Majonis, Marianna Chikosa, all these great stars of the company and I was learning this Potada and about a week later I got shuffled off to other rehearsals. So
but it was just such a bizarre experience. Three months later, we're opening at the Kennedy Center, which is twenty minutes from where I grew up, and two of the largest stars of the company who were supposed to dance that Potada did not show up to the dress rehearsal. And they have had a history of drug use, this couple, and they were also romantically involved. They didn't show up to the dress rehearsal. But as you may well know, full orchestra, the entire crew, you know, the spots, everyone's
standing there. Yeah, I mean this is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and the stars don't show exactly. So Misha fired them, and he came up to me and he said, how would you like to go on in the place of this famous star and dance with good enough? You're eighteen, I'm eighteen, And I said, oh, thank you so much, but you know, I'm only eighteen. I'm supposed to be in the back and I'm the fifth girl on the back with little heels on, you know,
is my debut performance with this. Well, it's interesting because I went on, and the only reason why I know I went on was I had one memory of it, and then there were photographs. That's the only reason why I know that I was actually on. And then after that everybody wanted to know who I was. So it kind of happened like that. But for years I kept thinking to myself. Now I'm thinking about ten years, I'm saying this to myself, when are they going to find out I don't know how to do this stuff?
And our businesses?
Yeah, the imposters side exactly. And so when I finally retired and then I started a school and somebody gave me a tape of my first performance, that performance, and I looked at it and I said, oh, I see why he wanted to push me. Because it was a quality. There was a quality that when I fasted forward as a teacher or as a coach, seeing that, actually, you know, a lot of people have a lot of great qualities and then there's that someone who has something extra and
I had that, I thought, Oh. It took me until I retired to know. I mean, I you know, eventually I felt like I could be Susan Jaffey. After about ten years, I sort of grew into it. But yeah, I could understand why he could see it.
If you looked at yourself objectively, you could see it in your own performance. Yeah, what's the life of the ballet dancer? And and also I'm thinking about food and eating and nutrition and what's that life like for them when they're at the top, when they're in the company.
Yes, well, now we are much more aware of making sure that the dancers are more supported with mental wellness in schools everywhere. Now there's a big focus on mental health. And I think particularly nowadays because of social media, because of iPhones, computers, et cetera, we as a society can be more disconnected from ourselves and so that will cause more mental anxiety. So we try to make sure that we support young.
Some of them struggle.
Oh yeah, I mean because it's lonely.
I would imagine you're just working so hard.
All you do is work, you work, But you love it. Okay, you love it. You know you're.
Happy when they're happy dancing.
Yeah, you're dancing. You love the art form. There's music. Yes, it takes tremendous will to dance and to you know, your muscles ache, or your muscles are cramping, or you have a slight injury, and or you want to push harder for that jump, and you don't have the stamina to get through this solo yet, but you're trying, and you know, and then on top of that, you have to be an artist on top of all of that, right, an interpreter of music and interpretive of space and interpretive emotion,
interpreter of the character everything. It's so it's such a goal that seems so far out of reach that it keeps you striving and striving and striving to do it. And of course dancers are all perfectionists, which is not so good. You know. I am now a reformed perfectionist, which I'm very proud of, and I try to help dancers understand it doesn't matter if you do it perfectly today. It also doesn't matter if you do that perfect double pirouette.
What matters is that your soul comes across the foot flights. That's all. Nobody cares whether or not you got that balance or you did you know. So they're also focused so much on their technique, even though they're also focused on the artistry that I try to remind them that, let's look at the bigger picture. But you know, they have to figure out how to fuel themselves so that they can accomplish their goals, that they can stay strong, they can get stamina. And also the food helps you
to emotionally be more stable, right, food, proper nutrition. Well, if they're not fueling themselves properly, they can, Yeah, they can become emotionally unstable. You know, you're you're hungry all the time. I was that way. I you know, I smoked like a fiend when I was a dancer. I quit actually before I retired, but I was severely underfueled just to stay very skinny. And I remember there was
this movie, I can't remember what it was. This lady she was a bride, her husband left her because he was gay, and she's screaming and crying, and somebody stops her from the car and he says, what's wrong, what's wrong? And she starts telling her story, and then she says, and I'm starving, and she falls back on the ground. I can't remember the name of the movie. I think it was In and Out or one of those movies.
And of course that hit a nerve in Meanwhile, I was talking in that yeah, and I started laughing so hard I couldn't actually had to walk out of the theater because I was so I was laughing so hard because I related to being starving. Now we are making sure that the dancers don't starve themselves. First of all, it creates more injury, more emotional instability, and all those things.
And you need to fuel yourself properly, not just oh, I'm going to eat a bag of potato chips, properly so that you can do those amazing feats.
All my life around people in movement and in dance, I mean like athletes, like syst It's in a contact sport, but the toughness to Yeah, you know, Nuriyev was obviously a gay man, but when I met him fleetingly, there was a power from him, like an athlete. Look, you're gonna play safety for the giants. Barishnikov's different. He was this tiny, little sparrow of a man. I met him at Toulon. We have big muscles, well, but with the
perfect body. Yeah yeah, yeah, he was perfect. But at the same time, they all have a kind of they o possess a kind of a power, you know, And I was wondering for you as you come through the ranks, is it still viewed as a woman's world largely?
No, I think it's more to evened out. I mean, men are still in the patada. Although it takes both men and women to make a great patada. The men are still doing the lifting because clearly physics say, you know, a five foot four woman cannot lift a six foot one man over her head and not get injured or fall of the ground. So the men are still lifting the women. But there are a lot more opportunities for men to dance.
The men are coming into the program.
Now, you know all.
I mean when they be largely from one area of the world.
No, No, they're from all over. They're from all over. And when you walk into the schools and they're all just you know, their muscles are shaking, and they're pushing into the air, and they're trying so hard, and their eyes are so eager, and they want to do so well. It's really it requires somebody who wants to go above and beyond what a human body can do. And that's why you feel the grit.
That's why I go there.
You feel the grit because it takes such tremendous will to do it.
Artistic director, choreographer and former Ballermina Susan Jaffee. If you enjoy conversations with artists who have conquered the classical repertoire, check out my twenty nineteen episode with It's ok Proman, recorded live at the NYU Skirball Center.
My parents, I thought that I had a good ear because I could repeat everything you know by singing it. And then I said, I want to play the violin. And I think they told me that I had a nice sound. Told me I started really when I was like almost five. He knows why what made you want it? I want it. I like the sound. I love the sound of the violin. I heard it under radio and I said, that's what I want to do.
To hear more of my conversation with Izak Perlman, go to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Susan Jaffe shares her approach to coaching dancers and her own journey from ballerina to dean and eventually director. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. Over the past twenty years, the world of ballet has become significantly more I was curious what Susan Jaffee attributes this to and how the ballet world of today compares to when Susan jaffe began dancing.
I think, you know, there were programs that started years and years, like thirty years ago, where dance was brought into, for example, underserved communities, and these programs expanded and as they got more money from foundations, they would bust the kids to the school. They would give them tights, leotards, t shirts, ballet slippers, et cetera. They would wash them after they were done, they would feed them lunch, and
then they would send them back to school. So I mean even programs like that, And at ABT in twenty thirteen, we started something called Project Plea, which was a similar kind of a program, and Missy Copelan was sort of the spokesperson for this Project Pla, So we started that and as a result of all of that, there are much more black and brown dancers in our company, which is absolutely beautiful. And so we have a beautiful array of all kinds of nationalities, all skin colors. I think
it's absolutely beautiful. And also because you get such different points of view artistically as well.
You go from running the school. How do you get involved with the first managerial position you have as in North Carolina.
Yeah, well, I co ran the school in Princeton for seven years, but our school, yeah right, co founded it, and I just didn't feel that Princeton was a place for me, and that working with children up until the age of eighteen, it just it didn't feel like the right fit. I loved them, I loved teaching, I loved all that. But when actually the job of a coach came up after seven years, if coach came up at APT, I went back to New York and I was there for two years and coaching, and I loved it. I
love taking all of the knowledge that I acquired. You know, I did so many additional things besides just rehearse. You know, I worked with the traumaturg. I did gyrotonics on the side, I did pilates. I did all of these things so
that I could be as well rounded as possible. And so it's so fun to sort of download that more quickly, more readily because when I was younger in the dance company, they didn't go into much depths as far as in the character, and I kept feeling like there's something missing, you know, I need more. I need to understand. I need to live these characters as if they're me so that I can move an audience, because that's what I'm supposed to do. And so I did all of that.
So it's really fun to be in the studio and get people to start thinking more deeply about the characters, more deeply about the music, more deeply about the quality of movement, and helping others to become empowered themselves. So also sort of nurturing out what's special about them, because of course you can never make somebody a carbon copy. They just become a bad copy, right, So they have to be you have to nurture what is special about them. So I love that. I love doing that.
So it's coaching at ABT then Princeton.
No, so I retired in two thousand and two. I started working with the Chairman of the board in two thousand and two, but in two thousand and three I also opened that school in Princeton. I came back to ABT from twenty ten to twenty twelve, and I was asked by the chancellor of the University of North Carolina School the Arts to come there and be the dean of dance. Actually there were five arts deans, and then
we had a provost. And at first I said, no, no, no, I've got a great life here, going to Carnegie Hall, I'm going to do you see opera, I'm going to Joe's Pub. I'm running around the reservoir. That was my form of exercise. I met the faculty there and they were in trouble. It's a long, long story, but I felt a calling to go because I thought I can help. And one of the things that I wanted to do.
So far as Nightingale, yeah, to help people.
When I retired from dance, was I want to be of help. I really want to help. So I left and I went to Winston Salem, which I had no aspirations to be living in Winston Salem.
You didn't want to live in Princeton, didn't want to live in Hopewell Junction. Did you want to go to Winston Salem?
Yeah?
What's the difference culturally between the two in terms of the arts.
Culturally, the main arts in Winston Salem was the school. We had a music school, drama, design and production, dance and film, and that was the main kind of.
Culture culture in the community exactly. Not much off campus.
There was some, but I you know, I came from New York, and you know, you can just be snobbish about the kind of you know, you get to see the biggest stars here, so you know, Okay, the local theater group is lovely, but you know, it just but then I found that the real meat and juice of that place was the community, which you know, there wasn't that much to do out there in Winston Salem. So what you did was this is when I started cooking.
I started having dinner parties because that was the way I could get community, and it was wonderful and I loved it there. It actually took me. I was there for eight years, and that's where I really learned how to oversee faculty and to really be a leader in ways that supported the people that I was in charge of overseeing and also help people to understand that they're also responsible, you know. So it was just a really
great learning curve for me. And I remember at one point thinking, you know, this is kind of good training to be an artistic director, you know, but I never thought I was going to be an artistic director. And after eight years and they said the median time for a dean is five to seven years because you burn out.
Did you give it a little bit?
Maybe? Yeah? I mean you I had other ideas. I wanted to make sort of dual courses for college degree courses, and I you know, that included choreography and music or dance, and it was it was going to be interesting. But I did feel like, gosh, I'm going to at one point run out of ideas. I basically created my job there. I mean, there were certain things I had to do, but all the extra things that I did I did on my own. I created a choreographic institute. I created
five summer intensives. I did a lot of additional things.
What did you take away from there? What do you remember most when you were there?
It was really how to lead people in a way that would help them to understand gosh, I really at first I have to step up to the plate. But number two, it's okay to fail. And being a lifelong learner shouldn't be scary, you know. And this is acting, this is dancing, right. We fail every day, we fail, every second we fail. Up right, we think ame is to fail, Our aim is to fail, right.
And so you got to get that out of the way.
Yeah, so when you're dealing with people and you say, okay, these are some observations I see in your class and or in your rehearsal that I think could improve, and you know, first I always said, you know, these are the wonderful things that you do. Here's where you can improve, and then end with something really positive. And I remember this one faculty member, she just looked up at me and she said, thank you for making this not scary.
And it really hit me because when I first got there, everybody was very nervous and a little bit defensive about getting any input from their dean. And by the end everybody was like staff, yeah, faculty, faculty, more faculty. And so then by the end they were like, oh, this isn't scary. It's great to learn and grow, it's great to have some insight, it's you know, we all are
learning together. And so that really made me feel like, wow, this is really such a responsibility and also full of heart, you know.
Really, because it sounds to me, before we move on to the next stop on the train here, it sounds to me like it was something that you made your own. Yeah, it's like they invited you down there and you were like, what do you want to do? And you crafted the program I do such as it was, and you were really really when you left it was something you had built. You go to Pittsburgh. This is the COVID era. It was COVID to you.
It was. We spent every day all day because the dancers weren't there. They were at home taking class on Zoom, and my day consisted. I went into the office every day. I was I never stayed home. I was in the office. Nobody else was in the building except for me, my assistant and maybe the CFO. Nobody else was there and some school staff, and we literally were on Zoom all day long talking about COVID protocols. Well, we have to tape out twelve feet squares for the dancers. We have
to break up the bars. Everybody has to be six feet apart, you know, there have to be hand Santa tier stations at every.
Oh.
Yeah, they did. It was insane and I had to say hard things like well, if you want to be in the company, you have to get a COVID vaccine. You know.
They did that.
Yeah, the school in the company.
Yeah, but the the company was at pitt and Pittsburgh.
Yeah, so we had a school and we had a company.
So you leave there.
So actually it was really interesting because I bought my dream house. I bought a beautiful house literally across the bridge from Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. I had three floors all to myself, a fireplace, a huge chef's kitchen, a big deck overlooking the allegay there. Oh yes, it's cool. Yeah, trees, grass birds. I loved it there. And then Ballet Theaters search firm called and said we'd like for.
You to apply for add at.
That point, ad and so I gosh, I thought. I was like, oh, I just bought this house. You know, I'm loving being here, et cetera. But I also said, you know, I am one of those people, and I know it every artist is. You don't want to be in your grave and have your gravestone say, I wonder what would have happened if I had only tried right, And so I'm that person, And I said, I will never know if they will choose me if I don't apply. So I applied and it was a little nail biting.
They would the search firm would Latin would go for a month after an interview, giving me no feedback at all. And one of the things that I did because I wasn't invested in getting the job because I loved where I was. I wanted to get the job, but I also loved where I was. But I thought to myself, I'm just going to tell the truth. I'm going to say everything that I think and everything that I think should happen. And I think the committee really appreciated just no,
you know, beating around the bush. No, this is what I think, this is what I think you can do. This is what I think where the ballet world needs to go. And the day before the day the morning that the search firm called me, two of my friends texted me this big article from I think it was the Washington Post saying the next artistic director should be either you know, Misty Copeland or somebody else. And I remember saying to both of them, you know, ABT needs
to do what they need to do. Go with God, you know, they need to do what they need to do. And then at nine six am, I was in the car going across the bridge and the search firm called me and the guy says, Hi, this is so and so, and I'm waiting and I'm thinking he's gonna tell me the committee's decided to move in a different direction. And he said, I just want you to know that you're the one.
I just want you to know we decided to hire you. What the hell kind of effusiveness was that.
He was just playing all foods?
I mean, what the hell?
Yeah, it was. It was unbelievable fooling around. Of course.
Dancer and artistic director Susan Jaffey, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Susan Jaffey details the challenges of getting audiences back into the theater after the pandemic. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. Susan Jaffey was appointed Artistic Director or ad of the Pittsburgh
Ballet Theater in twenty twenty. She subsequently found herself challenged with running a ballet company during the height of the COVID nineteen pandemic. In twenty twenty two, Jaffee stars as Artistic director of the American Ballet theater. A year later, she would become artistic director and executive director. Jeffy now found herself dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic and
its effects on a premier ballet company. I wanted to know what it was like to step into those roles after such a tumultuous time in the world.
It's insane. Lost a lot of money, lost a lot of supporters as well, because people stopped going to the theater and they started staying at home and watching Netflix and you know, getting home movie theaters and you know, all of those things. And it took a long time to get the audience to come back. And so this was like four years, five years of getting the audience to come back into the theaters. I think, oh yeah, By and large, it's interesting because ballet in particular has
really had a real surge of audience members. Now, even in Europe, more than opera, people are filling the theaters to see ballet, which is really interesting because in Europe mostly it was the opera house, you know, the Royal Opera House. Well, that artistic director who is in charge of the company, the ballet company got the name changed to the Royal Ballet and Opera House because the ballet is now funding right now the opera. So it's really
interesting ballet's from the opera ware that the Royal Opera House. Yeah, the Royal Ballet and Opera House. Now there's more attendance in the ballet than there is in the opera right now. And I think that's probably true here too. I think it's taken longer for the opera to regain their audience, probably because operas are so long. People are more stressed out. People are going to work much earlier. They're working longer days than we used to. Back when I was a kid,
you know, people were doing nine to five. That's not true anymore, right, So people maybe it's harder to go to the opera because you don't want to come home at eleven thirty at night and try to get, you know, a good night sleep. So it's been great to have ballet audiences come back.
I'm also under the impression that one of the reasons that's a financial advantage that the opera has at Lincoln Center is they own the only institution that owns their building. Yes, they lease the land, but the building they build themselves, and they own the building, unlike everybody else is a tenant of Lincoln Center.
Well, New York City Ballet owns their building, the Koch, Yeah, they own that and then they don't pay rent. So it's yeah, and Lincoln kirstein brilliant man. So he got the deal which was one dollar a year, so they don't pay rent. Of course they have labor. Now they're paying their labor. And if they don't fill the theater as a presenter when they're dark, then they're paying the You know, the labor is very very expensive. So you know, it's hard for everyone.
I'm assuming that at the student level there's disappointment of when they get let go, but it must be even harder when they're students, Like you're gett admitted to a program, and whether it's Julia or or ABT, whatever the school is, whatever the instructional facility is that at some point people are let go. Is there an attrition every year people going to your school? Whoever year you have to cull a certain number of people?
Absolutely you do. But you know, I'm one of those people who believe that everybody has their own path and that one should never look at any event.
You know.
Of course I'm not talking about war or things like that, or tragedy. But any event that seems like it's an adverse situation can be turned into alchemically into something brilliant. And you know, I believe that people follow their path and that ballet could have been one part of their path, but it helped them to go into being a doctor
or to being whatever. And when I was a dean and a student would come in and say, you know, Miss Jappie, I just feel like I don't want to do this anymore, I would say, yay, wow, you know, do you know how many people at your age know what they don't want to do? And you'll probably yeah, you'll probably make three times the salary of any ballet dancer.
So congratulations. You know, I fully support you. You know, you take all of your experiences with you and you can build a beautiful life regardless of what it.
Is when you're there. Now, I'm sure this is public record, but don't answer if you can. What's the budget of ABT now?
Annually our expenses are about fifty one million. Fifty one million.
That's all expensive, and most of it comes from individual supporters.
Yeah, donors, tuition from the school, ticket sales, and fundraing, and not a lot of ground not a lot of government grants. We get you know, foundations that love the arts, you know, and want to support in me and love the company and all of those things. But yeah, not very much from the governments.
What's a typical day in your life? Is there a typical day?
Yes, the typical There aren't typical fires, but there are typical days. So when we're in rehearsal period, I start in the morning at ten with meetings, just sort of back to back meetings. And this is with my executive director, our marketing director, our director of production, our general manager, like all different kinds of meetings. And then I go into rehearsal and I rehearse I don't know, between five hours three to five hours, and then I have other meetings.
You conduct the rehearsal.
Oh yeah, yeah, I coach and do all this thing.
You're not a person who does that for you.
Oh I have a ton of staff doing that too.
But if you are the principal instructor of the Balot company.
Well I'm the I'm the artistic director. So I oversee no, no, no, I was aded, but now we have a new.
Rather my apolicie. So you're the AD of course, then has ad you're there all the time.
Yeah, I was doing ADED for one year and now we have an ED and wonderful ED. So yeah, I'm there coaching, giving notes. You know the name again ED, his name is Barry Houston. Yeah, great executive director. So we're very blessed. And then rehearsal day ends at six thirty. Sometimes I have to stay for an hour or so to do email, et cetera. When we go into performance, I start again at ten and I will go all day until ten pm. Literally, no breaks, no lunch, no pizza.
Like you guys, got to have no breaks at all from ten to ten, twelve hour days and sometimes of course more you're not eating enough.
I try to you got to eat, thank you. This is impowerful.
And that's six days a week, and that's seventeen weeks a year. So it took me a while to get the stamina for that because you would know, the very very long days, and people don't realize how punishing those hours can be.
You know, it's right, you have to perform. Yeah, and on the phone, raising.
Money, raising money, going to events. You know, when I'm at the theater, going to dinners or after performance parties, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, there's a lot of fundraising as well, which I love.
So you started when AD only.
I started as AD in twenty twenty two December, and then I became ADED in May of twenty three. And then and then that lasted for one year, three days, ten hours, thirteen minutes and four seconds.
You were starving the whole time, not that.
I was counting, no, And that was tough because I literally didn't I didn't have a moment. I just didn't have a moment. And I, you know, I love the company and I wanted to make sure that I was the bridge to get that next fantastic ED. But I was going to carry it until we got that ED. And I was so happy we found a wonderful, wonderful executive director. So yeah, I never want to do that again.
Who plans the season?
Oh?
I do. And you look at the history of the whole program and say, well, we'd only just did that three years ago or four years ago.
I do have a record of all the things that we've done in the past.
Do you w alone make the decision?
I mean, you know, somebody might say, oh, remember this ballet or that ballet. You know, we'll banter back and forth. Yeah, but I make the ultimate decision. You know, a lot of people think, oh, you know, being an artistic director, you just choose the program, so I could do that. Well, it's so much more go ahead and try.
Yeah.
Well it's not only the program, but working with the dancers, understanding what they can do, understanding why we would be bringing in this piece or that piece, what it's going to do for the company, and how much risk should you be taking, how much have you been doing the classics, et cetera. It's a balance and also my job is also to make sure that the dancers are healthy, happy, supported, you know, feeling good about themselves. Ready, Yeah, and that's yeah,
it's not all day, no, every day. Yeah.
Are there people over the years that you saw them? Because I see this in my business quite often. You sit there and think to yourself privately, good luck, and you think they're really not going to make it, and they become superstars. No name is obviously for people who you think you're going to become the greatest thing in this business and they don't make it. Have you been wrong? On a couple of occasions about the arc of someone's professional career.
You know, when you're looking unless they get injured, right when you're looking at a dancer. I mean, I think you just can't hide behind your energy. You can't hide if you have passion or not, you can't hide. If you have work ethic, you cannot hide. If you have the right physicality to be able to execute that technique, you can't hide. If you're the artist, you can't hide. So I would definitely look at somebody and say, oh my gosh, that person's going to be a star, and
then they become a star. I haven't seen the only time when somebody who I think is super, super talented who does not become a star is when they just fall out of love with the ballet.
They change. They change, the business doesn't change.
They change exactly.
My thanks to American Ballet Theater's artistic director Susan Jeffey. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City. Were produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial and our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio compa