Born in Bulgaria, Dr. Ayrin Ersöz is a dancer, choreographer, and academic based in Istanbul, Turkey. She received her B.A. from the Dance Department at the School of Art and Design at Yildiz Technical University in 2003 and her M.A. in Art and Design, also from Yildiz, in 2006. Ayrin received her Ph.D. from the Theatre Criticism and Dramaturgy Department at Istanbul University. She worked as a dancer for CRR Dance Theater Company and Istanbul Dance Theater until 2007.
She has been invited, as a freelance choreographer, to present her works in national venues in Turkey and Europe. In collaboration with U.S. American choreographer Julia Ritter, Ersöz created Frozen Dream (Donmuş Ruya), an immersive dance–theatre production that was presented at the Energy Museum of the Santralİstanbul as a parallel project of the 19th Istanbul Theatre Festival. In her most recent choreography, shown at the 20th Istanbul Theatre Festival, titled Epimeleia Heautou, Ersöz intersects the concept of the care of the self and dance.
Currently working on her interdisciplinary improvisation project Antigone Divided Ersöz is collaborating with many artists from different fields including but not limited to dancers, musicians, visual artists, and filmmakers in establishing a creative dialogue through which many phases of Antigone’s short life are artistically revived. Ersöz is invited to collaborate in creating an international choreography project THE ENTRANCE with the dancers of Krakow Dance Theatre (Poland) and composer Sergej Maingardt (Germany) which is supported by The Institute of Music and Dance (Poland) and the local government of Krakow.
As a dancer, artist, and scholar, Ayrin has been invited to present her research at numerous international conferences and has published in various national and international journals. Her research focuses on the connections of dance to political ideologies and systems within historical and contemporary societies. She has been awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to conduct research at Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey. As a Fulbright Fellow, Ayrin engaged in a qualitative research project that explored the role that Islam plays in young female Muslim college students’ perceptions of dance as an art form and their participation in dance as a recreational and/or artistic expression.
Dr. Ersöz serves as an Associate Professor within the Department of Music and Performing Arts at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul.
