Born out of Furnish’s personal and professional experiences with classical ballet, commingled with her experiences here in the city, Ballet Renaissance has a 13 year history of building bridges that span urban and suburban communities, uniting individuals in common vision. Sustaining the traditional, Ballet Renaissance remains open to new visions of hope and creative solutions for today's problems. Inspired by two teaching assignments for Detroit Public Schools, Ballet Renaissance was housed five years at Wayne State University’s Maggie Allesee Department of Dance (1998-2003) and later at the all new Boll Family YMCA downtown. A long history of sustaining alliances with local artists and organizations, poised Ballet Renaissance for its current partnership programs, including outreach to public and charter schools and central training at the Detroit Opera House. In 2006, Radoslaw Kokoszka, Furnish's close friend and ballet partner, returned from a professional performance career in New York, and joined Furnish as Co-Director in October 2007. Together the two are committed to exploring and developing new and creative ways for establishing and sustaining Ballet in Detroit.