Dancers

Rie Matsuura

Rie Matsuura started ballet when she was four years old at Jun Ballet Gakuen in Japan. In 2011, she received scholarships with Houston Ballet Academy and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre for their summer intensive program at Japan Grand Prix 2011.

Ms. Matsuura won 2nd place in the Professional Senior Category at Ballet Competition in Nagoya in 2012, among numerous other prizes at the competition in Japan. In 2012, she moved to the United States and continued training at Houston Ballet Academy for 2 years where she was awarded 1st place in the Senior Classical Ballet Category at the Youth America Grand Prix 2014 Houston Semi-Finals. There she received a scholarship with Orlando Ballet as well as a scholarship with Ballet West at the Youth America Grand Prix 2014 New York Finals. In 2014, she joined Orlando Ballet’s second company, and continued training there for two years before moving on to Atlanta Ballet’s second company, where she had the opportunity to perform Belle in Bruce Wells’ world premiere of Beauty and the Beast. While in Atlanta, Ms. Matsuura had the opportunity to work with Tina Bohnstedt, Craig Davidson, John McFall, Yuri Possokhov, Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner. During her training, she attended summer intensive programs at Houston Ballet Academy, Orlando Ballet and Texas Ballet Theater.

In 2018, she joined Columbia Classical Ballet as a principal, and performed Gulnare in Le Corsaire, Sugar Plum Fairy and Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, and Snow White in Snow White. Ms. Matsuura danced with Texas Ballet Theater from 2019 to 2021. She is in her second season with BalletMet.