Born in Tucson, Arizona, Matthew Rusk trained at the Ruth Page School of Dance and Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy. He also attended summer programs at the School of American Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet School and the Royal Ballet School, and was a graduate of the High School for Performing and Visual Arts with honors in dance. Rusk recently graduated from Indiana University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Ballet with an Outside Field in Psychology. His repertory with Indiana University Ballet Theater includes the Cavalier, Snow Cavalier and Drosselmeyer in Michael Vernon’s The Nutcracker, Phlegmatic in George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Solor in La Bayadere Act II (Kingdom of the Shades) and roles in Violette Verdy’s Variations for Eight, Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15, Emeralds, and Rubies, and Merce Cunningham’sDuets. He was also a recipient of the Premier Young Artist Award and the Ken C. Whitener Fund for Ballet Excellence at the Jacobs School of Music.