Aisan Hoss
Aisan Hoss was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1984. She is a dancer and choreographer from Tehran, Iran. She started studying and performing Iranian dances at the age of twelve and teaching at the age of eighteen. While doing her BS in Business Management from Azad University in Tehran, Aisan attended a study-abroad English language program in London where she first encountered contemporary dance.
She became drawn to the form’s unlimited possibilities for individual self-expression and for experimentation of form and content. After graduating, she moved to London to pursue contemporary dance as her career. At the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Contemporary Dance in London, Aisan completed a one-year diploma in dance followed by a BA in Dance Theatre. At Trinity Laban, she found her passion in choreography and dance pedagogy, which inspired her to spend one-year teaching contemporary dance in Iran and to then pursue her MFA in Dance and Choreography at Mills College in Oakland, California. While at Mills, she received an Innovator Award sponsored by E.L. Wiegand Foundation. For Aisan, her passion in dance and choreography has been a means for gaining insight into her identity as an Iranian living outside of her home country. Specifically, several of her choreographies have explored the ways in which having physical distance from her home country provides a deeper sense of intimacy with its cultural essence. Aisan uses movement as a tool to find beauty in her history and identity. Inspired by modern Iranian culture, she aims to give voice to the quietest elements of her culture through choreography.
Photo of Aisan Hoss/Ballet Afsaneh by RJ Muna
