In 2014 when Jenifer Ringer and her husband, James Fayette, left New York for jobs in Los Angeles, they felt pretty certain it was goodbye forever to the city they dearly loved. And when, in 2021, they moved from California to South Carolina to be closer to family, they were quite sure that the five-bedroom house they bought in Charleston was their final stop.
“I’m from South Carolina. My parents are still there, and we had regularly taken vacations to see them,” said Ms. Ringer, who retired as a principal dancer with New York City Ballet in 2014. (Mr. Fayette, also a principal dancer with City Ballet, retired from the company in 2005.)
“The pandemic kind of made this lightbulb go off for James and I, where we realized we never had family dinners with our kids because we were always working and we always had this crazy schedule,” continued Ms. Ringer who with her husband has two children, Grace, now 18, and Luke, 14. “Suddenly with Covid, we were having regular sit-down meals together, and we had this moment where we said, ‘This has got to be a priority in our lives.’ ”
But two years ago, Ms. Ringer was offered a job overseeing the development of intermediate and advanced students at the City Ballet-affiliated School of American Ballet. “It just really felt like something that I didn’t want to turn down,” said Ms. Ringer, 53, who herself had trained at the school. (She and Mr. Fayette met there in 1988.)
