HANDS-ON TEACHING: Risa Kaplowitz, in purple, will leave the school and company she co-founded at the end of the summer. But Princeton Dance Theatre, shown here, and Princeton Youth Ballet will continue under the leadership of Talin Kenar. (Photo by Ashley Concannon)

By Anne Levin

After 18 years of teaching, choreographing, coaching, and running Princeton Dance Theatre (PDT) and Princeton Youth Ballet (PYB), Risa Kaplowitz is moving on.

Kaplowitz, who co-founded the Forrestal Village studio with former American Ballet Theatre (ABT) principal dancer Susan Jaffe, recently announced that she is moving to Sarasota, Florida, where she will join the faculty of the Sarasota Ballet’s Margaret Barbieri Conservatory.

PDT and PYB will continue under the leadership of Talin Kenar, currently the executive director of PYB. “Talin is perfectly poised to carry on what I started and will take it beyond,” Kaplowitz said this week. “I wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t been sure of that.”

While PDT is focused on training; PYB is centered on performing. Running them both eventually took a toll. “It was seven days a week for 18 years,” Kaplowitz said. “As gratifying as it was, I was beginning to feel my age. My husband has always wanted to live in Florida, but I never wanted to — until we discovered Sarasota. There is so much culture there, it’s just incredible.”

The Sarasota Ballet Company is known for its performances of ballets by Sir Frederick Ashton, a choreographer whose style Kaplowitz knows from her own performing career. She danced with the Dayton Ballet, Houston Ballet, and other companies before transitioning to a business career and having two children.

When the family moved to West Windsor, Kaplowitz began looking for a ballet school for her daughter, Adrienne. “I couldn’t find one that gave me the same level of comfort that I had at the Maryland Youth Ballet, where I was trained,” she said. “It was serious study, but very warm, and we were like a family. That’s what I wanted.”

Kaplowitz and Jaffe had been classmates at the Maryland Youth Ballet. Jaffe was about to retire after a successful career at ABT. The two former colleagues co-founded PDT, with Jaffe commuting from New York. She eventually moved on, but returned frequently to teach and coach. She is currently the artistic director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

“Susan leaving was a scary moment,” Kaplowitz said. “It took a lot of courage for me to say, ‘What we started was strong and it’s okay that just one of us is here now.’ And a lot of the reason I knew it would be okay was the ABT national training curriculum, which we follow. It is growing so many strong and versatile dancers that it doesn’t really matter so much who is at the helm.”

The ABT curriculum
incorporates elements of the French, Italian, and Russian schools of ballet training. “Susan was in the first class they offered, and she came back to me and said, ‘This is a game changer because we can get all of our teachers on the same page,’ ” said Kaplowitz. “It can be very confusing for younger dancers when different teachers tell them different ways to do things. Eventually, all of our teachers got certified. The level of consistency was something that was evident very quickly.”

Among the dancers Kaplowitz has trained for professional careers are Max Azaro, with Ballet Austin; Jillian Davis, with Complexions Contemporary Ballet; and Frances Forcella, with Ballet X. “The other thing that makes me proud is that we’ve had seven go on to Princeton University,” she said. “They submitted their dance videos, from their work with PYB.”

Over the years, Kaplowitz choreographed The Secret Garden, The Sleeping Beauty, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and other ballets, which are performed at Princeton High Schools’s Performing Arts Center. They will continue to be presented twice a year. “I intend to come back to every performance I can,” Kaplowitz said.

She will stay through the annual Summer Intensive, and leave for Sarasota at the end of August. “The most important thing for me is knowing that PDT and PYB are being left in good hands, and will continue to grow,” she said. “This is my baby, and it has to move on.”