As she confronted the end of a storied career as a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre a few years ago, Susan Jaffe faced that inescapable quandary: What next?

"I said there were two things that I would never do - teach and choreograph," she recalled.

Jaffe ended up doing both.

This weekend, she'll be in Boulder for the premiere of a solo she created for Tessa Victoria of Lemon Sponge Cake Contemporary Ballet. It's one of a handful of pieces she has choreographed as a sidelight to her new job as co-director of the Princeton Dance and Theater Studio in New Jersey.

But she kept one promise: "At the end there, with ABT, I just knew I didn't want to (dance) another Sleeping Beauty. I couldn't do that anymore. I didn't want my spirit to die."

She hasn't, and it didn't.

Jaffe joined ABT at age 19, enjoying a busy career in the '80s and '90s performing works by great dance-makers on a stage with Baryshnikov, Bujones, Makarova, Kirkland and other ballet legends.

But, as it does for every dancer, retirement finally arrived. It was April 2002, and Jaffe was 40.

"I still wanted to be creative and vital," she said, even considering stage-acting. "I just didn't want to be the person behind the scenes, enhancing the creativity of other people.

"I was, to be honest, very self-centered. I'd always taken care of myself. I had danced since I was 8. Then, I suddenly realized I had in my hands the lineage of my art form." Indeed, her teachers had studied under the pioneers of Russian classical ballet.

"It was my duty to teach - suddenly, it felt like a calling." With Risa Gary Kaplowitz she founded the Princeton school.

Since no ballet school in America can avoid The Nutcracker each holiday season, preparations were begun, with Kaplowitz assigning Jaffe to stage The Waltz of the Flowers.

"It's awful," Jaffe said of the scene. "The music is so stupid." She sang the famous tune in a mocking, sing-song voice. "It took me three months to put the thing together."

With dread, she attended opening night. "When the Waltz was over, the audience stood and cheered," she said. "I thought, 'Hey, maybe I'm good at this.' "

The next Christmas, she staged the "whole darn Nutcracker." Since then, Jaffe has created a handful of contemporary pieces, even staging Act 3 of Sleeping Beauty.

Earlier this year, she was introduced to Robert Sher-Machherndl, artistic director of Lemon Sponge Cake, who invited her to make a pas de deux for the two of them. Jaffe had little interest in dancing ("It would take me too long to get back in shape"), but she offered to set a piece on him or one of his dancers.

The result: Meditations Uncaged. The title refers to its music by John Cage, created for longtime Sponge Cake member Tessa Victoria.

But even after creating pieces for two or three years, it's still not easy.

"It takes time for the steps to reveal themselves," she said. "They have to emerge organically out of the music. I can't do it any other way."

• Of note: Lemon Sponge Cake Contemporary Ballet performs Project Peace by Robert Sher- Machherndl and Meditations Uncaged by Susan Jaffe.

Marc Shulgold is the music and dance writer. Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5296