Rafaela Sahyoun

Rafaela Sahyoun is a Latin American dance artist from São Paulo, currently based between Brazil and Portugal. She spirals through the intertwined roles of being a dancer, a young choreographer, and a teacher. She is fascinated by the ever-evolving landscape of performative practices, community, and context. She dedicates herself to artistic and pedagogical projects that unfold and shape-shift continuously through ongoing research and shared practices. Actively collaborating with artists, researchers, students, and art institutions in Brazil and abroad, she has a strong inclination toward hybrid formats of collaboration in dialogues with multidisciplinary disciplines.

As an educator, she cultivates a movement practice, ‘The Body The Player The Journey’, in contexts such as universities, higher education in dance and theatre schools, undergraduate and postgraduate programs, and both dance and theatre companies.

Her most recent choreographic work, Fôlego (2022), was commissioned by São Paulo City Ballet (Balé da Cidade de São Paulo, BCSP) in partnership with São Paulo Cultural Centre (Centro Cultural de São Paulo, CCSP) and had its 2023 season at São Paulo Municipal Theatre (Theatro Municipal de São Paulo).