Struan Leslie is from Dundee and began dancing there with Royston Maldoon. He trained as a choreographer and performer at London Contemporary Dance School and The Naropa Institute, Colorado.

Struan has worked in education departments of organisations including Hayward and Whitechapel Galleries, dance and theatre companies including, NT, RSC, LCDT and WNO also at the Universities of Greenwich and South Bank, London, and most recently he was International Council visiting professor at the University of Illinois.  He has taught movement and acting, and directed at many drama schools including Central, RADA, ArtsEd and GSA Conservatoire.

Recent work includes Iphigenia At Aulis at The National Theatre and Oliver Twist at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and national tour. Movement directing in the last year include Cuttin' a Rug, Traverse Theatre Edinburgh,  Katya  Kabanova, Grand Theatre Geneva, Girl of Sand Almeida Opera, Jephtha WNO, As You Like it RSC Stratford and Kenndey Centre, Washington DC.  Other movement direction includes, Ivanov and The Oresteia NT and also Du Maurier Festival of World Theatre Toronto, Merchant of Venice, Cyrano de Bergerac, Easter, Slaughter City,  RSC, Endgame and Morphic Resonance , Donmar Warehouse,  Easy Virtue, Chichester Festival, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Regents Park Open Air, London.. Iphigenia at Aulis National Theatre at the Abbey Dublin, Attempts on Here Life, Teatro Piccolo, Milan, Julius Caesar Young Vic and Japanese tour also as actor, Antigone TAG Glasgow Scottish tour, Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer by Michel Tremblay at The Traverse, Edinburgh and BITE at The Barbican. Television includes, Out On Tuesday,  Little Dorrit.

As a director Struan devises work for his own ensemble thewatercompany as well as for other companies of which he has been a member. This has involved him in collaboration with composers, visual artists working in a variety of media, architects, writers and performers. This work has been performed internationally and includes; Follow the Pink Diagonal Line, Tate Britain and Chisenhale Dance Space, Hong Kongtroversies, Purcell Room, Untitled, Studio Leeds Metropolitan, NewChild Sexuality Colorado Dance Festival, SexyGender Baby, Life on the Water, San Francisco, Baby! Look at You Now CDS and Glasgay! and Song of Songs, University of Illinois. Carmen:Opera Shorts Welsh National Opera,10,000 Broken Mirrors and Spinning , Oval House, London.