Jennifer Ringer

[ViennaWaltzer]

If you have never seen Jennifer Ringer dance, you don't know what you're missing! Everything she does is absolutely breathtaking. If you can, GO AND SEE HER PERFORM!!!!!!! From Odette/Odile to a contemporary role, she is a true ballerina. She has something that very few dancers have. Does anyone else feel this way?

[Dale]

I enjoy Jenifer Ringer's performances, too. She's so alive on stage, always communicating with everybody around her without currying favor. In addition, her dancing is quite juicy and musical. Two of my favorite roles of hers is La Source and the last pas de deux in In the Night. In La Source, she's all roccoco elegance, while in the Robbins she drama personified. I've never been more effected than when Ringer moves towards her partner then deliberately touches him on the chest, legs etc...(as if making sure he's real) before prostrating herself before him.

[Helene]

She is one of the NYCB dancers I've missed the most since moving from NYC.

[Hans]

Jenifer Ringer (is she named for Jenifer Street in DC?) is indeed very lovely--one of my favorites at NYCB.

[carbro]

I read that after she became a member of NYCB, Jennifer dropped an N to set her apart from all the other Jennifers. As a one-time resident of the DC area, it is likely that she got the idea for her new spelling from the street, which, btw, I have frequently passed when visiting the District.

The first time I saw Jenny, she was dancing the Waltz girl in a student performance of Serenade on the State Theater stage. It remains my single most memorable performance of that role. Even today, even from her, haven't seen it danced with so much freedom and sweep. The music just took her and blew her around the stage.

She is far from the stereotypical NYCB dancer and therefore a special asset to the company. I enjoy her in roles like Raymonda Variations and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, but in West Side Story Suite, she makes a huge impression as an earthy, street-wise Anita, probably because it was so unexpected. She brings great poignancy to the Act II pas de deux of Midsummer Night's Dream. I'd like to see her take on some of the great adagio roles, such as Second Movement Symphony in C or the first woman in Concerto Barocco, but I doubt she'll ever dance them at NYCB, due to a body type that is not customary there in those roles. I wish Peter would take another look with an open mind.

Her career has had its ups and downs, but her decision to take a year off may have paid off in the long run.

She is probably a great role model for young dancers as they face the inevitable ups and downs of life in a big ballet company.

Thanks for opening the thread, ViennaWaltzer. By the way, have you seen Ringer's Voices of Spring from that ballet? A delight!