Rubena Sinha is a storyteller based in Toronto, Ontario, who uses her extensive knowledge and experience of South Asian myth and dance to weave stories of life, love, heros and demons. Using movement and text, Rubena creates a world in which the listener encounters talking animals, her family members, and Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. Her stories are often interwoven to incorporate her own personal experience as an immigrant. The audience is encouraged to participate in her stories via movement, making her performances accessible on many levels and for many age groups. With a wide range of storytelling performance experience from large stages to intimate school classrooms, Rubena is able to put together a program or workshop that is specifically suited to the age and cultural background of the audience, as well as touching on the larger themes that are at play in the viewer’s lives.
A graduate of the West Bengal Academy of Dance, Drama and Music, Rubena has extensive knowledge of the classical art and dance forms of North India. Over the last 30 years she has created many cross cultural performances that reflect her own training in South Asian Classical dance forms Bharatanatyam, Manipuri, Kathak, Odissi and other forms. Founder and Artistic Director of Fusion Dance Theatre for many years, Rubena began her training in dance theatre in India under the direction of the interantionally reknowned Udaya Shankar. In 1994 Rubena took a year long sabbatical in northern India and Botswana and returned with a new found knowledge of the ancient puppetry traditions of Bengal. The dramatic revival of classic and folk puppet drama in India sparked a new desire to focus on the genre of storytelling for the last number of years.