Sebastian Oreamuno

Born in Santiago, Chile, Sebastian is a Toronto-based artist, educator, and researcher whose artistic and academic interests include the connection between movement and memory, (im)migration and diaspora, the participatory body, popular culture, men and pointe, and multi-media practices.

Sebastian holds a BA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), an MA in Dance from York University (Toronto), and he is currently working on a PhD in Dance Studies at York. His Master’s project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, investigated the relationship between men and pointe work. Articles that emerged out of his MA research on men and pointe include "The Pointe Shoe: A Tool for Knowledge Production" (published in Contingent Horizons); "The Boy with the Dancified Body: An 'Automythnography'" (published in Performance Matters); and "Stories of Men on Pointe" (published in Dance Collection Danse Magazine). His PhD research, funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, explores movement and memory in the context of cueca, the Chilean national dance, through his multi-media practice of dancing, drawing and writing. "Thoughts of Sorts" (published in New Sociology) offers a sample of the writings and drawings that have emerged through this daily practice.

Sebastian's passion for dance began at a young age in Chile, and was later reignited in Squamish, B.C. Sebastian is currently developing "Fragmentos," a multi-media project that explores the fragmentation of self with documentary filmmaker Juan Pablo Pinto. A work-in-progress of "Fragmentos" was presented at Aluna Theatre's Caminos 2019 Festival, in partenership with Native Earth Performing Arts. In 2022, he will be dancing in Aria Evans's "Heart2Heart" as well as in Sashar Zarif's "Kismet: Opposing Destiny," both of which will be presented in Montreal.