Ryan Handa

Japanese-American dancer Ryan Handa began his ballet training in 2012 at Ballet Hawaii in Honolulu under the leadership of Pamela Taylor Tongg. The following year, he continued his training at Honolulu Classical Ballet under the direction of Romi Beppu. In 2017, he joined the Allee Ballet Studio in Tokyo, Japan, under the direction of Mikina Kawamura and Aya Shinoda. Between 2020 and 2025, he completed his training at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart under the direction of Tadeusz Matacz. During this period, Nicola Biasutti and Dimitri Magitov were Ryan Handa’s main teachers.

In 2019, he was both a finalist at the Japan Grand Prix and was awarded a scholarship at the Japan International Ballet Festival. In 2025, the dancer was awarded the Fondation Coromandel scholarship at the Prix de Lausanne.

In the same year, Ryan Handa joined the Royal Swedish Ballet, where he appeared in Serge Lifar’s Suite en Blanc, Rudolf Nureyev’s Swan Lake and William Dugan’s If It Feels Good. His repertoire includes, for example, choreographies by Uwe Scholz, Jules Perrot, Leonid Zhdanov, Edward Clug, John Cranko, Maximiliano Guerra, Marius Petipa and Jorma Elo.

From the 2026/27 season onwards, Ryan Handa is dancing in the corps de ballet of the Vienna State Ballet.