Born in Tehran, Sussan Deyhim began her performing career with Pars National Ballet, affiliated with Persian National Television, between 1971 and 1975. In 1976 she received a scholarship to MUDRA, Maurice Béjart's School of Performing Arts, and subsequently performed with Béjart's Ballet of the XX Century.

Since 1980 Deyhim has been based in New York and has performed internationally as a vocalist, performance artist and composer. She has collaborated with the composers Micky Hart, Branford Marsalis, Christian Marclay, Peter Scherer, Elliot Sharp, Arto Lindsay, Heiner Goebbels, Jan Mattox, Loren Rush and Winston Tong. She has also appeared in many international productions, including Jean Claude Van Italie's The Tibetan Book of the Dead, directed by Assur Banipal Babilla; works by Elizabeth Swados; in Milan in Orfeo of Leonardo da Vinci and La Scala, by Micha Van Hengs; and in South America and Italy in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Nijinksi, with Lindsay Kemp's English Theatre Group.

In 1981 Deyhim began collaborations with Richard Horowitz when she recorded "Queen of Saba" for Horowitz's album Eros in Arabia. They then created a multi-media performance series called Azax/Attra: Desert Equations. Deyhim and Horowitz performed Azax/Attra I at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York in 1985 and Azax/Attra II at LaMama Annex in 1989. Also they performed Azax/Attra in New York at Central Park's Summer Stage, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, at Town Hall in 1987 and 1990, and for New Music America. Further they performed Azax/Attra at Ravinia in Chicago, Assilah Festival in Morocco, Festival of the Arts and Technology in Paris, the Berlin 750th Anniversary, ICA in London, and The City Contemporary Dance Company in Hong Kong, where they were also commissioned to create X-Isle Isle-X, choreographed by Deyhim and composed by Deyhim and Horowitz. The two performed as well at ARS and Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria in 1989, Time Zone Festival in Bari, Italy in 1990, Colline Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Prado in 1991, and Voices of the Universe Festival in Rome in 1991.