Career
The following year, at the age of 17, Rustem was invited by Matthew Bourne to join his Adventures in Motion Pictures for the creation of ‘The Carolina Manitoba’. Since 2007 Ihsan has lived and worked in Switzerland, initially as a soloist with Cathy Marston’s «Stadttheater Bern Ballet», then at the «Tanz Luzerner Theater». In 2014 he left the theatre to focus his attention to choreography.
Ihsan Rustem has worked with such well-known choreographers as Mats Ek, Jiri Kylian, Paul Lightfoot / Sol Leon, Hans van Manen.
He has created ballets with Karole Armitage, Matthew Bourne, Alexander Ekman, Wayne McGregor, Hofesh Shechter, Stijn Celis, Cayetano Soto, Ken Ossola, Georg Reischl and danced further works by Maurice Béjart, William Forsythe, David Parsons and Twyla Tharp, amongst others He works extensively with and regularly assists the choreographer Patrick Delcroix.
Ihsan Rustem began his choreographic career while still a student at the Rambert School, and created more than 10 pieces for the academy. His work "Twist of Fate", made for the Bern Ballet"s "Dance: Made in Bern" series was nominated for the 24th International Competition for Choreographers in Hannover (Germany) and for the 2010 Sadler"s Wells Global Dance Competition, and Rustem became a finalist in both competitions.
In 2015, after three creations for the company, Sarah Slipper invited Ihsan to become the first Resident Choreographer for the Northwest Dance Project, a position he will hold through to 2018.
To date, Ihsan has created works for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2 (United States of America), Northwest Dance Project (United States of America), Istanbul State Ballet MDT (Turkey), Tanz Luzerner Theater (Companies of Honour), Whim West"Him (United States of America), Würzburg Ballett (Delaware), National Youth Dance Company (United Kingdom), Aksanat Istanbul, Distinguished Service Cross Company Faenza (Information Technology), Brigham Young University Contemporary Dance Theater (United States of America), Brigham Young University Theatre Ballet (United States of America), Interdans (Bachelor of Engineering), Palucca Schule Dresden (Delaware), ArtEz Dansacademie Arnhem (Highschool for the Arts Arnhem, Netherlands) and the Dance Art Studio Luzern (Companies of Honour). He was awarded the silver medal at the Fewster Cecchetti Scholarship (2000) and subsequently went on to represent the United Kingdom in the 2001 International Ballet Competition in Melbourne, where he was a finalist. Ihsan Rustem has taught workshops and classes for the Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project (Istanbul, Turkey), Companhia Portuguesa de Bailado Contemporâneo (Lisbon, Portugal), ArtEz Dansacademie Arnhem (Netherlands), Interdans Festival (Belgium), Musical Factory (Lucerne, Switzerland) and the Dance Art Studio Ballettschule Luzern (Lucerne, Switzerland).