WINSTON-SALEM – It’s thrilling to recruit great talent. It also hurts to lose it.
The UNC School of the Arts, an under-appreciated gem in the UNC System, had such experiences in the past year with the departures of two talented Susans: Dean Susan Ruskin of the UNCSA School of Filmmaking and Dean Susan Jaffe of the School of Dance.
Ruskin, a Hollywood producer who had worked with such luminaries as George Lucas, came to UNCSA as a faculty member in 2009 and became Dean of the School of Filmmaking in 2013.
With support from tech companies who supplied the school with leading-edge equipment, she made UNCSA a leader in virtual reality and immersive media, founding its Media and Emerging Technology Lab (METL).
But she left in August to become Executive Vice President of the American Film Institute and Dean of the AFI Conservatory.
In the accompanying video from a 2016 interview, Ruskin discusses the immediate attraction she felt when she set foot on UNCSA’s campus, as well as the adjustments she made to teach her craft to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds.
More recently, School of Dance Dean Susan Jaffe announced she will depart UNCSA in June to become artistic director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.
Jaffe spent 22 years as a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, where she worked with such noteworthy artists as Mikhail Baryshnikov and George Balanchine and The New York Times dubbed her “America’s Quintessential American Ballerina.”
After arriving at UNCSA in 2012, she secured some of the finest dancers and instructors from around the world as guest artists.
She also oversaw creation of the Choreographic Institute, a summer program that fosters new work by established and emerging choreographers. Five UNCSA dancers have been selected to take part in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne since 2014.
“Susan Jaffe is that rarest of creatures: a real star with no need for other people to know that,” Lynn Felder of the Winston-Salem Journal wrote recently.
The move to the Pittsburgh Ballet “is a move befitting her stature as an artist, administrator and visionary. If it is true that managers manage and leaders hold a vision for the group, then Jaffe has been a true leader at UNCSA.”
The things colleagues note about Jaffe are her energy and her work ethic.
“Dancers just don’t understand ‘no.’ We don’t understand ‘can’t.’ The love of the work keeps us going,” she told Felder.
“You don’t stop just because things become difficult. I’m not saying bang your head against a wall, but things that are hard bring you a lot of wisdom.”1
In fact, the two Susans collaborated with Jacquie Barnbrook to produce DecipHER, a virtual-reality short film.
The School of the Arts can be proud that it attracts such stars – and to some extent, it’s natural for them to be sought elsewhere in the entertainment industry. Still, we need not only to attract people like Susan Ruskin and Susan Jaffe, but keep them as long as we can.
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