Biography

Ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre.

She was Advisor to the Chairman of ABT's Board of Governing Trustee from 2002-to-2007.

She was accepted into the American Ballet Theatre at age 19, becoming a member of ABT II.

Then artistic-director of A.B.T. Mikhail Baryshnikov personally pulled her out of the Corps De Ballet and asked her to replace experienced Principal Gelsey Kirkland for a gala performance of "Pas d'Esclave" when Kirkland's drug addiction and temperamental behavior problems were flaring up. Jaffe then was immediately promoted to Principal and maintained the rank for 22 years.

She is one of the co-founders of Long Island University's educational initiative for the dancers of American Ballet Theatre.

People tend to look at ballet dancers like we're these little jewels, little cardboard cutouts. And yet we have blood and guts and we go through hell.

[Why people didn't think she'd make it's a ballerina]: I had legs up to my ears and big feet.

The way I like to coach is I love to love my dancers into working hard. You know? And I want to help them to love to work hard, so that they see the fruits of their labor. But it is sort of cultural that women are more nurturing and take better care, maybe, of the internal side of the dancer.

But I have to say that I'm on this coalition called the Artistic Director's Coalition. And there are a lot of male artistic directors in there right now. And everybody is really taking a very deep dive into the health, the mental health of their dancers, because that's really prevalent these days, is mental health. And also discussions on inclusion. And everybody is really mindful and wanting to make sure that their companies are inclusive and a safe place to be.

Well, I do think the culture is so different now than it was when I was a dancer. I think women are innately just more nurturing, perhaps. I say that, but I also think, for example, Kevin McKenzie is very nurturing, as a male. And I think women in general are culturally more used to taking care of everybody. And it's a little bit different than how a male...and that's not to say that women aren't demanding.