Today we’d like to introduce you to Mathilde Rasmussen.
Hi Mathilde, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Being from a small town in a small country like Denmark where the opportunities in entertainment are so much more limited than in the United States, growing up it can be incredibly hard to believe that you even have a chance in making it internationally in the arts, whether that’s music, acting, photography, film, writing or in my case: dancing. I feel lucky because my dad was an athlete, so my parents raised my three siblings and I all around Europe. We lived where he had his contracts, so I was born in Switzerland and lived in Germany as well before we moved to Denmark.
It was installed in me from a very young age that if you truly have a dream, you will find a way to make it happen and in my home, it has always been encouraged to travel and see the world. I had my parents as role models and that’s why I’ve never been scared of moving to other countries. I’ve lived in China for a year, lived in Dubai for three months and moved to the United States alone in 2018.
My biggest wish is to inspire and encourage other artists and dreamers from small towns to follow their dreams by being an example of exactly that. I realize that not everyone is coming from encouraging homes so a lot of people let self-doubt stop them from even trying.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I honestly pinch myself daily. Fast forward a few years and I find myself at Warner Brothers in the iconic lots with a choreographer that choreographed some of my favorite movies that inspired me as a child. I work alongside some of the biggest actors who I watched in my TV while eating cereal after school in Denmark and training at the most famous dance studios in the world. The fact that I am being flown out to China, Dubai, and Denmark to judge competitions and are working jobs in all of the United States is something little me only dreamed about. I still can’t believe that it’s my life but I never take a second of it for granted We all have our own struggles and battles, but the obstacles that immigrants and foreigners have to face just to even get to the start line of this race is on another level.
I am so extremely proud of all my international friends – every time I see any of them win, we are all winning. When my Norwegian friend books a tour – some young dancers in Norway believe that that could happen for them too. When my friend from a small town in Switzerland finally had a network pick up her script, her high school friends might gain the confidence to pursue writing as well.
I run an online dance mentorship program where I get the chance to inform and encourage young Danish dancers to pursue dancing professionally – and I couldn’t do that hadn’t I pursued it myself. I could go on and on, but I think pursuing any dream makes so much more sense and feels less selfish if we work from a place of wanting to serve others.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
But me pursuing dance will not alone convince a young kids that they can do it too. Podcasts, social media and books are great to get that little spark of motivation and inspiration, but in the end of the day, you won’t believe that you can do it yourself until you start taking action.
Action is what will create the self-confidence you need to pursue your dream because every time you take action you either learn, fail or succeed. By taking action you literally find evidence that you can do hard things and you gain the experience you need in order to move forward. It’s like Super Mario or any other video game. You can’t cheat your way to level 90, you gotta work you way up. And you’re most certainly not gonna get to level 90 by watching someone else do it, but it might make you believe that one day – you can do it too.
You gotta be courageous, brave, pro-active and a healthy amount of delusional to take that leap of faith and pursue anything in the entertainment industry.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
How important art truly is in this world. Just look at how everyone turned to art to find comfort when we were all locked up at home and how essential it was our mental health in a time of crisis. It reminded me how needed entertainment and storytelling is in this world to comfort, inspire, change systems and people’s perception of the world around them. Art truly makes the world a better place whether it’s music, dance, film, writing, photography, poetry, painting, and creating art truly keeps our inner child alive. On a personal level being away from LA and the entertainment industry reminded me how important what I do is to me, to my own mental health and to my heart. I think I’m naturally living from a place of gratefulness because of my journey, but I think all of us learned to appreciate what we have a little bit more.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lovenotestola.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/mathilde.veje
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovenotestola
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqakm7ijPwL920GvFH2ao_Q
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@matilda.veje
Image Credits
Mai Tilson
