Ballerina and businesswoman Matisse Love shares her journey
BALLERINA MATISSE LOVE grew up on Plymouth Blvd. and has returned from Russia to live in L.A. and freelance as a ballerina.
Photo by Michael King
Matisse Love is a ballerina. That’s what she wants you to know. “I don’t do ballet! I’m a ballerina. It’s so much more. I’m trying to express that in my performances,” she said.
It’s hard to find a discipline comparable to ballet. It’s a combination of being the highest level athlete, mastering an Academy Award-worthy emotive craft through movement, and having the discipline to keep oneself in peak physical performance. For Love, it’s also a matter of being a strategic, confident businesswoman. She finds her own jobs, negotiates the financials, schedules travel from one country to the next, and hires her own dance partners. Love said, “Not only is the physical side so intense, but the aspect of being this surreal artist is very, very deep and makes me emotional. The hungrier I am to learn things, the more I grow, and the better I become. I can see it in the movements—it’s not from one step to another. It’s the journey and how you get there.” And her journey is worthy of a film.
Currently Love freelances as a dancer all over the world. This fall and winter she will be dancing the “Nutcracker” and pieces from “Don Quixote,” “Paquita,” and “Swan Lake” in Scotland and India. In September, she danced in the SoCal Ballet Scene festival on a Sunday, and the following Monday she started rehearsing for her next performance. Organizing her schedule is always on her mind. She reflected, “How can I travel to this country, train for my next performance, and then make it back in time to rehearse with a different partner, to then go to another country the following week? And all through this, I have to stay healthy and stay strong.”
How did she get here?
Love grew up on Plymouth Boulevard in Windsor Square. She remembers going to The Music Center to see “Swan Lake” performed by The Mariinsky Ballet when she was 9. She told her mother, “I’m going to do that.” At 7 she began training with the local Marat Daukayev School of Ballet and remembers becoming obsessed with the Russian ballet technique, “I lived and breathed Russian ballet.” As a student with Daukayev, she competed as a finalist at the Youth American
EVEN AS A CHILD, LOVE was drawn to classical Russian ballet technique.
Photo by Alexander Yakovlev
Grand Prix in New York. After that exposure she decided she was going to dance with the Bolshoi Ballet and live in Moscow. She was 10.
At 13, she got an offer to live in Moscow and train with the Bolshoi Ballet’s academy, but didn’t take it. “My parents said ‘no,’” she recalled. “I’m happy they did. They said, ‘We want you to have a childhood.’ My mom and dad have always been very supportive, and they’re my best friends. I grew as a person in choosing to stay here.”
At 15 she got another offer from Bolshoi and knew then it was the right time. “Now or never,” she decided.
One of her least difficult obstacles proved to be the fact that she didn’t speak Russian. “I learned just by being there and dancing. I didn’t take any language classes. However, I did learn the alphabet so I could read the rehearsal schedule. Then I quickly learned body parts. A teacher would smack my arm and say, ‘Ruka!’”
Despite all the movies that portray mean ballet dancers, Love said she became friends with the Russian ballerinas. “None of us had our parents there. I made sure to walk in with my chin down, I stood in the back, and I knew I was there to learn. The girls respected me for that. And they saw I had Russian technique.”
At 16 she graduated the Bolshoi, and at 17 she joined the Russian Ballet State Theatre. For the next few years, “I was living my dream! I was working and dancing all through COVID. I got promoted to first soloist. Then the war with Ukraine hit in 2022,” she recalled.
Things changed radically at that point. “I couldn’t believe this beautiful place I lived in was not safe anymore. I looked out my apartment window and saw tanks. I was heartbroken to know what was going on for Russians, Ukrainians. I’m not political. I’m an artist. So the thing to do was to leave. It was not safe for an American.”
Her parents tried to book her on over 10 different flights and each one got canceled within minutes of booking. “You have to understand, I had my whole life there. My own apartment, friendships. It was very hard for me to leave. One night, I had finished dancing in ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ I’m in hair and makeup. I packed one suitcase and left in a taxi to the airport after the show. I walked up to the ticket counter and said, ‘Get me out of the country.’ I felt I had an angel watching over me—I got the last flight to Miami. I remember my parents were up 24 hours trying to help. But I did it. I got stopped in the airport by security and asked, ‘Why are you here? What are you doing?’ When I touched American soil in Miami, I felt like I could breathe.”
AS A FREELANCER, Love books jobs, flights, and hotels; hires partners; and keeps herself mentally and physically strong.
Photo by Alexander Yakovlevher
Love immediately had offers to dance with other ballet companies, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to dance at a company again. She reinvented herself and came back to Los Angeles and worked freelance jobs, including playing the role of Eli in “Étoile,” a ballet drama series on Amazon Prime.
“I’ve traveled the world. It’s been so fulfilling,” said Love. When asked what’s next in her busy schedule, she replied, “I will be in Scotland with Aaron Smyth from Australia, who danced at the Royal Ballet and Joffrey Ballet. In India I’m bringing my friend and partner Harry Peterson and will be dancing ‘Paquita,’ the ‘Black Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake,’ and a part of ‘The Nutcracker.’”
Love truly has the fantasy career for many young ballerinas. “I’m so grateful for every year I dance. I do barre everyday, even when I’m sick or injured, just to move. I’m fine being that 90-year-old doing barre. That’ll be me. Pointe shoes in my grave? Yes, I’m fine with that. That’s me!”
Category: People
