Jennifer Ringer is back at American Ballet School in a new role

“Y'all” is comfortable enough in its own right, but hearing it dozens of times in ballet classes in New York City is a happy discovery. Like: “I want y'all to move more. If you oh, it falls out of your pirouette.”

That voice, that word, that sound south – Jennifer Ringer is back in town.

A former principal of New York City ballet, Ringer is currently the director of intermediate and advanced departments and artistic programming at the American Ballet School.

She reminded the students of the basics, as the 52-year-old Ringer called out for a combination in a recent technique class starting with a simple pre-e sequence in Barre. It's about pushing all 10 toes into the floor. It pulls your legs, wraps your muscles, and increases your turnout. Contract the stomach into the spine. Preparation is important for the Ringer. She likes to talk about where the dancers hold their body weight.

“If there's all the movement, it's much better,” she said. “It's better.”

As a teacher, Ringer is accurate and solid, but encouraging. She can get hooked. Before the class she warned: “I'm a very curly and red face, so I'm probably losing my dignity.”

Her face turned pinker, as her smile was more delightful. She never lost her dignity, but she wanted to dance louder and bolder to listen to the music from her students and ride it. Musicality and efficiency are issues for her.

Linger is part of a restructured leadership at the school led by Jonathan Stafford, also the artistic director of New York City ballet. The school is currently run by a team of three. Ringer. Aesha Ash, Head of Artistic Health and Wellness. and Katrina Killian, director of the Children and Preparation Department.

This school, considered to be the most prestigious ballet academy in the country, trains urban ballet dancers. Most of the company comes from school. Stafford decided to rebuild after a brief stint for Darla Hoover as faculty chair. Stafford said he realized it was a big job for one person.

And after the pandemic, schools were experiencing a transition. Wellness has become a priority. “It was a much broader effort,” Stafford said.

Last year, Stafford invited Ringer to be his guest teacher for a week. Simone Gibson, 16, explained at the time that she was “a breath of fresh air because she really wanted to be there.” Gibson said, “She was like coming here, I was here for you, I was ready to come here for you, learn with you, learn about you as a dancer.”

All the while, Stafford had something bigger to pitch. “I wanted to sit face to face and tell her that she really felt she needed her as a sub,” he said. “I wanted to work with her at school.”

She and Stafford know each other well, but the job offer was a surprise to Ringer. At City Ballet, they are dance partners, and Stafford is “based in stressful, pressured, vulnerable moments,” Stafford said.

When he sees their names on casting sheets and rehearsal schedules, he is filled with relief. “I'll celebrate internally,” he said.

Ringer, whose romantic presence and musical dance can easily bridge drama and humor, did not consider himself as a teacher. “I wasn't one of the dancers who studied the class,” she said.

However, her teacher at the school left the important remains. She did her best studies, including Stanley Williams, Alexandra Danilova, Antonina Tunkovsky (or Tumi), and Suki Scheller, who still train dancers at school.

“Everything is very different,” Ringer said. “Tumi worked on our strength and stamina. Suki worked on our accuracy and quality of presentation. Stanley was delicate and control. And Dani Donkey had perfume and magic.”

Her own educational career began gradually. After retiring from City Ballet in 2014, she moved to Los Angeles, directing the Colburn Dance Academy and became dean of the Truddle Zipper Dance Institute in 2017, where her husband, former City Ballet principal, James Fayette, was Associate Dean.

Being in Colburn and caring for students for a year has changed my ideas about what a teacher is. She liked their plans: “What is the good repertoire for these students to learn this year?” she said. “I know I have goals to work on. I look at them and say, 'Oh my well, we really need to plan it for a month.' ”

She also found herself enjoying digging. “That's where I think I started to find passion,” she said. “That's what I really got a lot of understanding about what it means to be a teacher.”

“It's only natural that Ringer will try to excel at American ballet schools,” she said. “I remember the feeling that I was one of these students, and I remember that I wanted to please these teachers more than anything else, and now I'm one of the teachers and I know how hard they work and how much they care.

But she also knows they want to be pushed. Kai Perkins, 16, said Ringer is focusing on the strength of the building. “If we're taking Adagio steps, she will show us how to be on our feet before we do the combination,” Perkins said. “So we go in and do it. We already know how to approach the steps. I think all the other classes actually helped me.”

Killian knows Ringer because they both danced at City Ballet. “Her spirit is exactly how she danced,” Killian said. “I think this is very unusual. Some people are gorgeous dancers, but the way they interact with people is difficult.”

Before she was offered a job, Ringer and her family (she and Fayette have a daughter and son) lived in Charleston, South Carolina in 2021, spending more time together as a family and approached Ringer's parents. (Linger grew up in Summerville, South Carolina)

This year, she lives in a studio apartment in New York and commutes to Charleston over the weekend. Her family will join her this summer. She said Fayette couldn't wait to return. In 2013 he was stabbed with scissors while protecting his toddler son from attackers in Riverside Park. Recently, as a family, they returned to the site. “We're building positive memories,” Ringer said. “There are so many things I love in town, and obviously there are other things too.”

At City Ballet, Fayette was one of the company's best partners, and Ringer was a marvel of versatility. Always gorgeous, with eyes bright enough to shine up to the fourth ring, Ringer can act. She may be a brilliantly deadpan and smoking a “Namouna” cigarette in a role created for her by Alexei Ratmansky.

However, her career didn't always follow the plan. “I didn't have a meteor rise in the company,” she said. She joined the company as an apprentice in 1989, and “it takes five years to make a soloist, then five years to become a principal,” she said. “And in it, I was let go.”

She was suffering from an eating disorder. “I felt like a failure within the perfectionism of the dance world, so I really couldn't function,” she said.

When she left in 1997 – her contract was not renewed – she never imagined that she would return to dancing. However, during her vacation, she found her independence outside of ballet, eventually returning to dance in 1998, and then to work at City Ballet.

For the rest of her career, ballet was a choice. But in 2010, a reminder of her previous struggle came when she wrote in her review of George Balanchine's Nutcracker that Alastair Macaulay, as a sugar plum fairy, in the Times, “it looked like she had eaten one sugar plum.”

It caused a fuss. Always open about her eating disorder, Ringer ended up with the Oprah Winfrey Show. Looking back, she said, she can see how it started some good dialogue. He also showed her how healthy she has become. “By the time that all happened, I was going through my own,” she said. “It was strange. I mean, I managed to meet Oprah.”

For Stafford, the way Ringer faced her own problems was, “there is a reality in conversations with students she might experience the same thing.” “She can speak from her true experience.”

Not only does she help her become a better teacher, but Ringer hopes that her experience has enabled her to become a “better supervisor of the student's body,” she said. “It's really important to take care of them as humans within the framework of a ballet school. I think life is messy, life is difficult and ballet is beautiful.

She said, “There is a reality in the dance world, but we also need grace and mercy.”

Before the recent SAB ball, Ringer cooperated with the dancers at the entrance. Sometimes she tells them to walk on stage, stand and say their names in their heads.

“Everyone who was my student knows that the entrance and exit are really important to me,” Ringer said. “I want them to come out and say, 'This is me.' That's what we all want to see. ”