Ms. Brianna Furnish was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. As a young child she danced alongside her mother, who was a Graham trained modern dancer, college dance professor and liturgical dancer. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she began formal studies in the Martha Graham modern dance technique at age 6, under the tutelage of Julliard Graduate, Ms. Jerry Bywaters Cochran. At age 13, she was encouraged to begin ballet training in order to augment her chances for a professional modern dance career, and began training with Denise and Evelyn Brown. A year later, she began classes in Dallas Ballet's pre-professional program, under the direction of Royal Danish Ballet‘s Flemming and Vivi Flindt. There she received a talent scholarship, and met and trained with the late great Madame Nathalie Krassovska, former prima ballerina with Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, who became a significant mentor in her life. She was then accepted to the School of American Ballet (NYC), where she had the exceptional opportunity of studying with Mme. Alexandra Danilova, Suki Shorer, Mme. Antonina Tumkovsky, Andrei Kramerevsky and Stanley Williams. Later she was granted admission to the North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied under the careful attention of former New York City Ballet ballerina, Melissa Hayden. Furnish performed for ballet companies in Dallas and Tennessee, including Krassovska Ballet Jeunesse and Tennessee Ballet (Memphis), while continuing private instruction with both Mme. Krassovska and the late Robert Scevers (Harkness Ballet). In June of 1997, she founded Ballet Renaissance.