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.

Clinton Luckett

Clinton Luckett was a dancer with American Ballet Theatre for 10 years, from 1992-2002.  His professional career spanned 15 years and began at the National Ballet of Canada.  As a dancer he created roles in original works by Glen Tetley, William Forsythe, John Neumeier and James Kudelka among others and appeared in featured roles in most of the full-length ballets in the classical repertoire.  Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he began his dance training there, including studying and performing with Louisville Ballet. After two years of further studies at the National Ballet School in Toronto, he joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1987. In 1992, Luckett came to American Ballet Theatre where he was featured in the works of Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Agnes De Mille, Martha Graham, Jiří Kylián, Lar Lubovitch, Kenneth MacMillan, Mark Morris and Antony Tudor.  He appeared on television in the PBS/Dance in America programs ABT Now and Le Corsaire, and in the CBC/Rombus Media productions of Glen Tetley’s Alice and La Ronde.

In 2002, Luckett became the Artistic Associate for the Education and Training Department at ABT.  In that position he worked closely with the ABT Studio Company, was a regular faculty member at the ABT New York Summer Intensives, and also served as a Company Teacher at ABT.  In September 2006, he assumed the position of Ballet Master with the artistic staff of ABT.  Luckett has been a guest teacher for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and taught ballet at New York University.

Luckett performs the roles of the Tutor in Swan Lake, Escalus and Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote in Don Quixote, Galifron in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, a Dacha Dweller in The Bright Stream, and the Duke in Lady of the Camellias.

Luckett was appointed Assistant Artistic Director in August 2016 and Associate Artistic Director in September 2020.

Susan Jones

Susan Jones was born in York, Pennsylvania and began her early dance training there. She continued her studies with Lucille Hood at the Rockville School of Ballet in Rockville, Maryland, and with Mary Day at the Washington School of Ballet in Washington, D. C.

In 1969, Jones made her professional debut with the New York City Opera, Robert Joffrey, choreographic director, and was an original member of Joffrey II.

Jones joined American Ballet Theatre in 1971 and danced with the Company for eight successive seasons. Among her roles were the Cowgirl in Rodeo and The Accused as a Child in Fall River Legend. Her transition from dancer to staff member began in 1976 when, as Assistant Ballet Mistress, she assisted Twyla Tharp with Push Comes to Shove.  She was appointed Ballet Mistress in 1980 and Regisseur in 1982.

During a three year hiatus after the birth of her daughter, Jones mounted Natalia Makarova’s full-length La Bayadère for the Ballet del Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1992) and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s production of Don Quixote (Kitri’s Wedding) for The Royal Ballet (1995)  In 1995, she staged ABT’s most recent production of Don Quixote in collaboration with Kevin McKenzie.  Shortly after, she returned to ABT as Ballet Mistress. Her ABT stagings include George Balanchine’s Symphonie Concertante (2006) and Agnes de Mille’s Fall River Legend (2007), as well as Twyla Tharp’s Push Comes to Shove (1999), Bach Partita (2013) and The Brahms-Haydn Variations (2015). Other international stagings include Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia at the Mariinsky Ballet (2014) and, for Teatro Colon, Sylvia (2015) and Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet (2018). She staged Ashton’s The Dream (2017) and Michel Fokine’s Les Sylphides (2017) for The Washington Ballet.

In addition to her duties as Regisseur, Jones performs the role of the Dacha Dweller in The Bright Stream, Berthe in Giselle, the Nurse in Onegin and Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. She is an ABT Certified Teacher of the ABT National Training Curriculum.

January 11, 2021 marks 50 years since Jones joined ABT.

Irina Kolpakova

Irina Alexandrovna Kolpakova was born in Leningrad and studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School where she was an outstanding member of the great pedagogue Agrippina Vaganova’s last graduating class (1951).  She entered the Leningrad-Kirov Ballet at the age of eighteen and danced her first leading role, the title role in Cinderella, at the age of twenty-two.

Her roles with the Leningrad-Kirov Ballet included the Waltz and Mazurka in Chopiniana (Les Sylphides), Eve in The Creation of the World (to the Andre Petrov score), the title role in Giselle, Maria in Rostislav Zakharov’s The Fountain of Bakhchisrai, Masha in The Nutcracker, Desdemona in Vakhtang Chaiboukiani’s Othello, Natalia in Petrov’s Pushkin, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty.  Her created roles included Katerina in Yuri Grigorovich’s The Stone Flower (1957), Shyrin in Grigorovich’s The Legend of Love (1961), and leading roles in Igor Belsky’s Coast of Hope (1959), Georgi Alexidze’s Ala and Lolly (1969), and Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasiliov’s Creation of the World (1971).

Kolpakova was honored with the title of Merited Artist of the R.S.F.S.R. in 1957 and People’s Artist of the R.S.F.S.R. in 1960.  She is married to Vladilen Semenov, who partnered her in many of her most famous roles.

Prior to joining American Ballet Theatre as Principal Coach in 1990 during the Company’s 50th Anniversary season, Kolpakova taught and coached the Company in May 1989. She currently coaches Company dancers in all variations and pas de deux from ABT’s classical repertoire, including La Bayadère, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake, as well as in contemporary classics by choreographers such as Kenneth MacMillan, John Cranko, and Alexei Ratmansky.

In 2014, Kolpakova, with Kevin McKenzie, staged a new production of Raymonda Divertissements.

Kolpakova received a 2010 Dance Magazine Award.

John Gardner

John Gardner has distinguished himself in two major dance companies, American Ballet Theatre and White Oak Dance Project. He joined American Ballet Theatre in 1978 and was promoted to the rank of Soloist in 1984. Gardner’s diverse repertoire at ABT included numerous Soloist and Principal roles which afforded him the opportunity to work with many of the master choreographers of the 20^th century. Gardner was invited to join the White Oak Dance project in 1991, dancing many new and pre-existing works by choreographers such as Mark Morris, Lar Lubovitch, Paul Taylor, and David Gordon, as well as works by many other icons of modern dance including Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham. He currently serves as Répétiteur for the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust and as Director of the Antony Tudor Dance Studies. Together with his wife Amanda McKerrow, he stages many of the Tudor ballets around the world. During the course of his career, Gardner has achieved an excellent reputation as a Master Teacher and coach on both the professional and student levels, and for the last 20 years, has enjoyed teaching and directing workshops and intensives, while staging numerous works for ballet companies and universities in the United States and abroad.