Rutkay Özpinar (1991) is a Dutch/Turkish choreographer with an extensive background in dance, like contemporary dance, classical ballet, hip-hop and Turkish folk dance.

Rutkay started dancing hip-hop and breakdance at a very young age and not long after with classical ballet and contemporary dance by joining Boys Action (Program of Artez). He pursued his ambitions to become a professional dancer at Codarts, University for the Arts in Rotterdam and danced with dance companies such as De Dutch Junior Dance Division and Introdans. In 2014 Rutkay made his choreographic debut at the age of 23 at Korzo as the youngest choreographer in The Netherlands and is currently a house choreographer at Korzo. Over the years he created many works for Korzo and also dance companies such as Introdans and Conny Janssen Danst.

In 2019 Rutkay’s work took a huge spin when he did a research on Turkish folk dance to let it influence his movement language. He focused on dance styles such as Turkish bellydance and Halay. As his work was progressing Rutkay managed to let the different elements of contemporary dance, classical ballet, hip-hop and Turkish folk dance blend into his own authentic movement language.

What fascinates Rutkay is the cadence of the human body responding to music, the way the body starts moving according to it. It is a state of possession that liberates the soul and expresses itself by letting the body speak, enriched with a middle eastern touch.
He approaches his work with the subject of our existence that struggles to find rest in this world.
Rutkay’s performances aim on taking the audience to another world, away from reality where everyone is part of his rhythm, let it be the dancers or the audience.

According to Rutkay the strength of dance lies in the magic the body creates which cannot be translated into words, nor rationalized. Dance has a language of its own. It speaks different volumes as it moves through space, playing with shapes, dynamics, and disrupting the ideology of aesthetics by approaching the movements naturally.

Rutkay created plenty of works for Korzo and collaborated regularly with Introdans. Throughout his career he has been nominated for awards such a Piket Kunstprijzen (2014), Dutch Dance Audience Prize in the category: Best dancer (2013 & 2014) and won the BNG Bank Awards in 2016 with his piece ‘Grip’ (Korzo production). In January 2023 his first full-length production ‘Work Line’ premiered and toured throughout The Netherlands followed by other two new works that toured in the same year. Rutkay’s ambition is to create works for many other dance companies in the future.