Today we’d like to introduce you to Faustine Lavie.
Faustine, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born in Toulon in the Southeast of France in 1995. I started taking ballet classes in a small private school there called Ballet Studio Marius when I was 3 years old. I loved it immediately, and I knew I wanted to become a professional dancer by age 7 or 8. I then started being home-schooled in order to pursue dance at a higher level. I moved to Paris when I was 10 to study at l’Ecole du Ballet de l’Opera de Paris. In 2015, I was accepted in The Ailey School, which is why I moved to NYC. After 3 years in the Certificate Program, I graduated and started working professionally in the city. I did a lot of auditions but also started to meet more and more people and make more connections with dancers, choreographers, and directors. That’s how I ended dancing for many companies and taking part in many projects. Now I also create my own work with Faustine Lavie Dance Project, the dance collective I founded in 2020.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. Not at all. I faced many struggles, especially when I was a teenager. Having started with ballet, my first dream was to become a professional ballet dancer and work for some companies like l’Opera National de Paris or ABT. I had all the physical abilities, flexibility, a good turnout, nice feet, etc. Unfortunately, when I started getting older, my body changed and I didn’t have naturally the body type required for ballet dancers. After trying many different diets and way to lose weight, which all have been unsuccessful and gave me body dysmorphia as well as problems with food, I started contemporary dance. It wasn’t by choice at first, and I didn’t like it that much, but it was more accepting. I had a couple of very tough years during which I didn’t know what to do with my life. I couldn’t be a ballet dancer, but I didn’t really like contemporary dance either. When I was accepted in the Ailey School, my family pushed me to go because what did I have to lose? Nothing. That’s when I finally started liking dance again, and also accepting myself. I said accepting because it took many more years before I started liking myself and it will always be a process and evolution, but I definitely can say that now I like myself and I love what I do in the dance world. Honestly, I am grateful it happened this way because now that I found who I am as a dancer and human being, I believe I wouldn’t have been as happy if I had been only doing ballet my entire life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Now I do mostly contemporary dance. Various styles of contemporary dance actually, because it’s a very large spectrum and you can do many extremely different things as a contemporary artist. I work with many companies, such as LaneCoArts, iKADA Contemporary Dance Company, The DynamitExperience, sarAika, Six Degrees Dance, etc. They all have their unique styles and I love working with all these people with different ideas and different backgrounds. I also created my own dance collective in 2020, Faustine Lavie Dance Project, and discovered I love choreographing. I’ve been presenting my first work “Outburst” in many venues In Philadelphia and NYC. I’ve also recently self-produced my first one-hour-long show thanks to Emerging Artists Theater who gave me this opportunity. It was a lot of work, and very stressful, but it was a success and I’m so happy about all the positive feedbacks and comments I received afterwards. That’s something I’m very proud of because it’s my own baby coming to life.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
It’s very hard to predict for the dance industry or the art industry in general. It’s like fashion, trends change, and some old trends come back to popularity, but you never know in which direction it’s going to go until it’s there. For myself, I hope Faustine Lavie Dance Project gets more visibility, more funding, and more opportunities. On the very long term, I hope I can bring my dancers on tour and get performances in big prestigious venues. For me individually, maybe getting a full-time job in a prestigious company, or opportunities to choreograph for them
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.faustinelavie.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/faustinelavie?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Image Credits
Paul DuBois
Deto Ahn
Magdiel Baez
