Born in Connecticut, Larissa received her training from The Hartford Ballet and The National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto, Canada. She danced professionally with The Hartford Ballet and The Hamburg Ballet and Dresden Semperoper Ballet in Germany. Larissa’s repertoire includes Esmeralda and the lead role Marie in John Neumeier’s The Nutcracker, Glen Tetley’s Voluntaries, Senfasamen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the 4 pair in La Fille Mal Gardée, solos in Uwe Scholz’s Klavierkonzert Nr. 3 and Tom Schilling’s Wahlverwandtschaften, a Gypsy in Petrushka, the six friends in Giselle, John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew, Le Sacre du printemps, The Firebird, Don Quixote, John Neumeier’s Illusions Like Swan Lake, Balanchine’s Serenade, the pas de trios in Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia, Chopiniana, Daphnis and Chloe, Uwe Scholz’s Red and Black and The Creation, Shakespeare’s As you Like It, and the world premiere of Kirk Peterson’s The American Nutcracker. Larissa graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University in May 2010 and is Co-founder and former Director of Public Relations of the Columbia Ballet Collaborative.