About Marina

Marina began her journey in performance arts when her mother enrolled her in gymnastics class at the age of four. From there she went on to take tap, jazz, and ballet and enjoyed performing in her classes recitals. When she was 12, she joined a youth hip hop group called Off the Streets, who performed in various venues and festivals in Portland, OR as well as on television. In high school, she continued her acrobatics training as a flyer on the school's competitive cheerleading squad, was a dancer in her high school's musicals, and also competed in cross-country running for 4 years. In college, while obtaining a B.S. in Aquatic Biology from UC Santa Barbara, she continued to study ballet and modern dance, as well as taking up belly dance and traditional middle eastern dance. While taking a modern class by a visiting master teacher in downtown Santa Barbara, she was recruited to join a professional modern dance company called Motion Theatre Dance. Around the same time she joined the university's Middle Eastern Ensemble where she performed classical dances with a 50-piece orchestra.

Upon graduating, Marina took a short break from school, in which time she continued to perform belly dance, modern, and hip hop, while also studying flamenco, hula and salsa. She soon went on to continue her academic education with a Master's program in Marine Science near Santa Cruz, CA. It was during this time that she joined 3 professional dance companies, Desert Dream belly dance, Nocturnal Sunshine fire dance, and Mir & a Co. aerial dance theatre. Marina had no experience with the aerial arts but it was after only a few months of classes with Mir & a Co. that they asked her to perform in their upcoming production Place of No Escape. She stayed with the company for 4 years, performing and receiving most of her training in aerial apparatus. It was in Place of No Escape where she also began training in object manipulation and fire with Srikanta Barefoot, who became her performance partner for several years, and went on to be the lead fire dancer in Cirque du Soleil's Zaia. While also performing with Desert Dream, and as a solo belly dancer at special events and restaurants, juggling her performance career with her scientific one became too much to handle. After 2 years of straights As in grad school, she made the difficult decision to quit in order to pursue her professional career in the performing arts.

Soon after, Marina went on tour with Nocturnal Sunshine to Australia performing fire and aerial, and also teaching poi and bell dance technique. Back in Caifornia she continued to perform solo and with the companies, as well as teach classes in poi, belly dance and aerial tissu. while making a move up to the San Francisco Bay Area, not far from Santa Cruz. There she started teaching at a dance and acrobatics school, owned by Aurelien Roulin, a talented French performer. From Aurelien she quickly learned the fundamentals of adagio and partner acrobatics, which they coupled with Argentine Tango, contemporary dance, aerial tissu and object manipulation to form a versatile duo under the name 370 Degrees Productions. Marina began studying dance at the San Francisco Dance Center and Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, as well as the San Francisco Circus Center, training in Chinese acrobatics and handstands with Mr. Lu Yi. Meanwhile, she was performing a solo tissu act and solo belly dance act in On Broadway dinner theatre in San Francisco.

In August of 2009, she found out about an immediate opening for an adagio act and aerialist in Maui, Hawaii. Because she was already committed to a special event under former Cirque du Soleil director Alain Gauthier in California, she was not able to audition in person, but ended up flying to Hawaii within a few weeks and began performing with Cirque Polynesia the day she arrived. She stayed on the show for 1 year, performing 6 nights a week, while also doing a couple short tours in Honolulu, Guam and Saipan with the Great American Circus and International All-Star Circus. After a year, Marina decided it was time for a change and new experience, and decided not to renew her contract with Cirque Polynesia. In 2011, she performed in shows in Montreal and Santa Cruz, California. She now continues her training in hand to hand and new aerial skills.