Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy Bring Their Expertise to American Repertory Ballet

By Anne Levin
Photography by Andrew Wilkinson

The first time Ethan Stiefel was approached about becoming artistic director of American Repertory Ballet (ARB), he wasn’t sure it was the right move for him. The Princeton and New Brunswick-based company had already performed a piece that the former star dancer had choreographed, and he felt a rapport with its dancers. But becoming their artistic leader was another matter.

“I was happy where I was,” said Stiefel, who at the time was coaching and teaching at American Ballet Theatre (ABT), the company from which he had retired a few years before. Stiefel’s wife Gillian Murphy was, and still is, a principal dancer with ABT, and one of its most enduring stars. Most importantly, they had a baby on the way. It seemed wise to stay put.

By the time ARB executive director Julie Diana Hench posed the question again, it was four months into COVID-19. The couple had sold their New York apartment, pre-pandemic, and were riding it out in a cabin in northeastern Pennsylvania. They weren’t sure when, and if, life would ever get back to normal and they’d be able to pick up where they left off.

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Has spring finally sprung?

March came in as the lion it is supposed to be but, judging by the chilly and rainy weather, the lion was still with us at the end of April and into May … as was inflation, a volatile stock market, an ineffective Washington, and the horrible war in Ukraine. Wouldn’t you just love to curl up with this June issue of your magazine and read all about uplifting things?

Well, before you do that, you must read Donald Gilpin’s Q&A with Ekaterina Pravilova — Princeton University professor of history and acting director of the PU Program in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies — on the situation in Ukraine and Russia, including her contemporary responses and her view through the lens of history.

When I see the journalists report on what is happening in Ukraine, I have to admire the bravery of those reporters, as I do the bravery of all journalists reporting from the sites of violence all over the world. You will get some interesting perspectives on journalism from Ilene Dube’s visit with Uganda-born Razia Iqbal, a visiting lecturer in the Princeton University Humanities Council as Ferris Professor of Journalism. She is best known worldwide as an anchor on Newshour, BBC’s World Service program. You may have heard Ms. Iqbal on Philadelphia’s WHYY 9am broadcast of the BBC Newshour every weekday.

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Photo courtesy of Princeton University Office of Communications

Interview by Donald Gilpin

Princeton University History Professor Ekaterina Pravilova holds the Rosengarten Chair of Modern and Contemporary History and is the acting director of the Princeton University Program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, she received her Ph.D. from the Russian Academy of Sciences. She came to Princeton University to join the faculty in 2006.

We spoke on April 4, about six weeks after the Russian invasion and start of the war in Ukraine. News and photos had just come out revealing the mass killing of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

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