Iris Bouche was born in 1976 in Bangkok and raised in Belgium. She studied at the Royal Institute for Ballet in Antwerp, where she graduated in 1993. The same year she took part in a competition for choreographers in Hannover and won the third prize for her creation Judeo. In Tokyo she won the first prize in the International Dance Competition, where she choreographed Black Angels, a solo performance by Kimiho Hulbert. After summer classes with Alvin Ailey Dance Centre in New York, she travelled to Lausanne to study at Maurice Béjart’s Rudra School.

In August 1995 the Rosas company hired her as an apprentice. In June 1996 she performed in Verklärte Nacht. From 1996 to1997 she was a key dancer with the Rosas company, under guidance of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. She danced in the creations Woud, Just Before, I Said I, Drumming, Achterland and In Real Time.

In 1998 she was awarded the Golden CJP, a prize offered by the Cultureel Jongeren Paspoort (Cultural Passport for Youngsters) offered to the most promising young dance talent of the year. 

Working freelance since 2001, she co-created, among others, the film Ma mère l’oye with Thierry De Mey, NEARBY with Riina Saastamoinen, Loom with Manuela Rastaldi and with Jan Lauwers for the re-make of the Needcompany’s King Lear. 

Apart from these co-creations, Bouche has been searching for her own dancing language, which results in choreographic pieces such as Judeo, Black Angels and Clair/Obscur: a duet danced and created with Annabelle Ochoa Lopez, which gained wide recognition and won various awards. In November 2003 she created Bliss, less than everything, is anything at all, a dance play for nine dancers, together with composer and musician Gerrit Valckenaers for Polydans Company and Happy New Ears. In January 2003 the creation Mais pas pour trois had its premiere, a work in search of the boundaries between dance, word and music. Mais pas pour trois is a production of wpZimmer and a co-production with ccBe, STUK Leuven and the City of Antwerp.

November 2004 brought the premiere of Lilium at the Cultureel Centrum Berchem, a dance performance for “inclusion-dance” for youngsters with and without a physical disability, in cooperation with Goele Van Dijck and a production of Fabuleus.. In November 2005 the multidisciplinary performance Blauwdruk compare/contrast, a creation in which dance and graphics meet, had its premiere. Bouche worked with Sandra Delgadillo and De Letterleggers (Ivan Verhulst and Rafaël Vandeputte) on this piece, a production of wpZimmer for PRiSMA, co-produced by ccBe and City of Antwerp. 

In 2006 Bouche appeared in The Best of Shakespeare, a production of Toneelhuis under the guidance of Josse De Pauw and in the W@=D@ project’s Kumari ( by Dimirti Leue ), a production of Het Paleis, which had its premiere in January 2007. In April 2007 she was part of the project A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes, a production of all artists in the Toneelhuis, under the guidance of Guy Cassiers. 

Since June 2007 she has been working together with choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, performing in his dance creation Myth (  touring 2007-2008 ) and co-creating the new production of Olympique Dramatique Adams Appels ( 2009 ), in a production of Toneelhuis. 

A side from her collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, she continued working with different theater collective including Skagen, FC Bergman “ Walking along the Champs – Elysées...”( 2009 ) and writer, actor Dimitri Leue, coaching Armandus De Zoveelste ( 2008) a production of Het Paleis.

At the moment she’s developping a project called Cutting Space, a work in progress in a collaboration with muscian and composer Kobe Proesmans. A live research looking for the relationships between physical limitaions and it’s diversity.

Cutting Space had it’s fisrt showing at cc De Werft ( 2009) with dancer and performer Marie Limet and a second showing with ex-dancer Judith Delmé, during the monthly edition of HIT THE STAGE at Monty (2009).

Next to her personal work she’s been teaching and working for different danceschools and giving several workshop with a focus on inclusion-dance.

Since 2010 she been teaching at the dance departement of the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp and choreographed the piece “Aporie” for all the students dance of the Royal Conservatory.

She worked as the artistic director of the dance departement of the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp (Artesis College) from 2011-2016.

She's taking a break from her function as artistic director to start her master degree Cultural Studies at KULeuven 2016-2017.