Interview with Choreographer and Performer Sivan Rubinstein
London-based choreographer & performer Sivan Rubinstein creates visually striking, research-driven works that explore themes of migration, climate, identity and the body. How does she do it?
Hi Sivan, have you always had a strong connection with your body?
In some ways, yes. I always loved dancing and moving, but my relationship with the body really began through necessity. As a dyslexic girl growing up, I needed different ways to express myself and navigate language and communication. Dance became a way for me to understand the world beyond words.
Movement was a tool for communication, investigation, and connection. Through dance, I found another language, one that allowed me to process emotions, memory, and experience physically. That relationship has continued to evolve, and it remains deeply connected to the way I create work today.
Can you please explore what ‘NOVO: A Living Cosmos in Motion’ means to you? How do you relate to the cosmos here?
Novo looks at the body as part of nature, not separate from the world around us, but intrinsically connected to it. We often think of the body as something isolated, but for me, the body is a living ecosystem, almost like a miniature cosmos that we carry within ourselves.
The work explores all the elements that exist within us: water, fire, air, energy, memory, DNA, organs, and rhythm. It asks how these internal systems mirror the wider natural world and how movement can help us reconnect to them. In Novo, the body becomes a site of transformation, memory, and relation.
The project also draws from research across art, science, and philosophy, as well as my interest in how movement can help us reset and retune ourselves. I wanted to create an immersive experience where audiences could move, listen, and inhabit a world shaped by light, sound, energy, and collective presence.
Ultimately, Novo is an invitation to reconnect with our ever-changing bodies and to remember that we are part of a constantly transforming planet. As we transform, the world transforms with us. The work asks how we might find our place within that continuous cycle of change.
Inclusivity seems to be a central theme in your work. Can you talk about how NOVO engages with that idea?
The idea of the body as home sits at the heart of Novo. For many years, I have been researching the concepts of home, belonging, and displacement, the body as home and the planet as home. Experiences of change and migration often make us long for a place to return to. Novo offers the possibility that home might already exist within us.
A lot of my practice is rooted in neurodivergent methodologies, particularly through my ongoing research project Beat Space Beat, which explores alternative ways of sensing, processing, and relating through movement. I am interested in creating environments where people can connect to themselves and each other without feeling pressured to fit into a single way of experiencing dance or performance.
Novo exists as a communal practice as much as a performance. The residency includes workshops, professional classes, conversations, and a relaxed matinee for parents, carers, and pre-walking babies. I wanted audiences to encounter the work through different entry points, whether by watching, moving, listening, or simply being present in the space.
As an immigrant, I have often reflected on what it means to belong and how we carry memory, displacement, and identity within the body itself. Novo explores the possibility that the body can become a place of return, a home we carry with us wherever we are.
For me, inclusivity is ultimately about creating spaces where people can feel held, curious, connected, and able to exist as they are.
Is there a movement practice that you feel the general population needs most right now?
I think many people right now need practices that help them slow down and reconnect with themselves physically. We live in a culture that often pulls us away from the body, into screens, productivity, speed, and constant stimulation.
For me, movement is about joy, connection, circulation, concentration, and being present with one another. Sometimes the simplest practices can have the greatest impact. We can walk more, spend time outdoors, or create opportunities to move together. Personally, I love a walk-and-talk meeting much more than a Zoom meeting.
Dance is a multisensory, physical experience that should be accessible to everyone. I think people need spaces where they can feel grounded again, where the body is not judged or pushed to perform, but experienced as a place of memory, intuition, and connection. That is very much at the heart of Novo.
What are you enjoying in the wider culture scene right now? What’s caught your attention?
The best work I have seen recently is actually the paintings of my daughter. She is four and a half years old, and she is magical. Children have an incredible ability to create without self-censorship. They are curious, playful, fearless, and completely present in the act of making. Watching her draw and paint reminds me of qualities I try to hold onto in my own artistic practice: wonder, experimentation, and trust in the unknown.
Beyond that, I am continually inspired by artists and researchers working across disciplines, particularly where art, science, ecology, and philosophy meet. But honestly, my daughter's paintings have been the most profound exhibition I have visited this year.
Learn more about Novo here.
Follow Sivan on Instagram here.
Photography by Jurga Ramonaite.