British and Swiss choreographer Ihsan Rustem was born in London, where he trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.

Ihsan is the artistic director of the Swiss dance company Cie. La Ronde, which he founded in 2020 with choreographer Cathy Marston, and the resident choreographer of the NW Dance Project in Portland, Oregon, where he has created twelve works to date.

Among his other collaborations are Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Ballets Jazz Montréal, Sao Paulo City Ballet, National Ballet of Chile, Moscow Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2, Istanbul State Ballet MDT, Tanz Luzerner Theater, Bern Ballet, Konzert Theater St Gallen, Whim W’Him Seattle, Ballare Carmel, Ballett Augsburg, Thüringer Staatsballett, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Tanztheater, Kazan State Opera and Ballet, Koblenz Ballet, Ballet Regensburg, Ballet Würzburg, Siberian State Ballet, Salt Contemporary Dance USA, Arts Umbrella Dance Company Vancouver, Moving Arts Cincinnati, National Youth Dance Company, Palucca Hochschule Dresden, Codarts, ZHdK, Tanzwerk101, Taipei National University of the Arts and Rambert School. He was one of the featured choreographers for the popular Russian television program The Bolshoi Ballet.

Nederlands Dans Theater appointed Ihsan as one of its emerging choreographers for the 2018/19 season.

His work for the NW Dance Project has garnered numerous awards. State of Matter won the 2012 Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest, as well as the Audience Award at the 25th Hannover International Choreographers Competition, and Carmen received the 2017 Dance Magazine Readers’ Choice Award for Best Collaboration. Rustem was also the 2014 recipient of the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago International Commission Project.

Rustem is the former director of the Luzern Ballet School and, in 2021, he joined the jury of the prestigious Prix de Lausanne.

From 2000 to 2014, Ihsan Rustem was a dancer with Ballet Theater Munich, Introdans, the Bern Ballet, Tanz Luzerner Theater, and Adventures in Motion Pictures. He performed in works by Wayne McGregor, Hofesh Shechter, Alexander Ekman, Matthew Bourne, Stijn Celis, Patrick Delcroix, Cayetano Soto, Felix Landerer, and Cathy Marston. He also worked with choreographers Mats Ek, Jiří Kylián, Paul Lightfoot/Sol León, Hans van Manen, and William Forsythe, among others.

Ihsan lives in Zurich, Switzerland.

Photo: Aline Paley - Prix de Lausanne