Ghost Ship | Prison Renaissance Prison Renaissance Special Issue Volume One | Page 8

Dust/Blood/Water - An Interview with Jennifer Faust

Camille Griep, special for Prison Renaissance

Camille Griep: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us here at Prison Renaissance about your artistic vision, your projects, and your sense of place. Perhaps I can start by explaining to our readers that before you moved to the East Bay, we were baby ballerinas together in Billings, Montana many years ago. Could you explain how your dance career has evolved from then until now?

Jennifer Faust: My family decided to move to California when I was 12 years old, and the culture shock was quite something. I honestly thought everyone in California looked like Bay Watch! I was actually excited to see the diversity that the Bay Area had then, and continues to offer.

Dance wise, I started training at Marin Ballet. I also studied at Dance Theatre 7 and was training 6-8 hours a day. I would dance after school, do homework, go to bed and get up and do it again. The weekends were reserved for full days of ballet training/rehearsal days. I didn't have a life outside of ballet and school. At the age of 17, I broke my foot and decided to rebel quite heavily against dance in general. I'm not sure if it was because it was SO intense for SO long... but breaking my foot, taking a subsequent step back and being so young, I was questioning everything.

I then went to UC Santa Barbara and thought I would take a ballet class for 'an easy A'. Little did I know UCSB had one of the best dance programs around, and I was quickly sucked back in, studying contemporary, modern, West African Dance, and Salsa.

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