Sebastián Oreamuno

I’m a queer artist and academic who was born in what is known as Santiago, Chile, which is on
the traditional territory of the Mapuche peoples, Wallmapu; and my family immigrated to B.C.
when I was eight. As an uninvited guest to this land, I’m grateful to have grown up on
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) territory and to be currently based in Tkaronto,
which has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, and, presently, by the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. I’ve been fortunate and privileged to continue speaking Castellano (my mother tongue) and to be able to learn and experience different dance forms, a passion that began at a young age in Chile and that was later reignited in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh.

I hold a BA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), an MA in Dance from York University (Toronto), and I'm currently working on a PhD in Dance Studies at York. My 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 my 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). My PhD research, funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, explores movement and memory in the context of cueca, the Chilean national dance, through my 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 from this daily practice. My other 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.

I've recently had the pleasure of working as a performer or dancer with Sashar Zarif (Kismet 2019, 2020; Re/turning 2021), Aria Evans (heart2heart 2022) and Nava Waxman (Variations on Blue Gesture 2020). I've also collaborated with documentary filmmaker Juan Pablo Pinto on a multi-media project, Fragmentos. A work-in-progress of Fragmentos was presented at Aluna Theatre's Caminos 2019 Festival, in partnership with Native Earth Performing Arts. And in 2023, I co-presented Copucha+Gup Shup, a dance piece co-choreographed with artist-academic Arpita Bajpeyi and in collaboration with the York Dance Ensemble (YDE) at York University.