Sasha Amaya is a dancer, choreographer, and installation artist.
Amaya’s works are occupied with form, movement, dance, art history, collage, text, and architectural surrounds as means to revist the so-called canon of art history. In doing so, she utilizes, rejects, reframes, and repurposes historical narratives and techniques in contemporary art work as part of a broader illumination and reconfiguration of the relationship between politics, aesthetics, and the possible. Shown in both visual art and choreographic contexts, her works are known for their combination of play and precision, her biting revisions of the art historical, and the body as a radical agent of form.
Her trilogy ‘‘On Form and Fiction’’ comprises a set of works reimagining dominant narratives in art history. Sarabande (Sophiensaele, 2020) questions the linearity of Western dance history through the recreation of four baroque dances, Solo for Boy (DOCK 11, 2024) interrogates white masculinity from a starting point of art history and fashion, and Orfeo (Tanzfabrik, upcoming) explores music and myth through the lens of Euridice, song, and dance.
Sasha Amaya’s work as a performer and creator has been exhibited and supported by Tanzhaus Zürich in Switzerland, in Germany at the Sophiensaele, Tanzfabrik, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, nGbk, DOCK 11, Uferstudios, Lake Studios, ada Studios, fabrik Potsdam, and PACT Zollverein, in France at le centre national de la danse Lyon, la Cité internationale des arts, l’Abbaye du Royaumont, and the Centre culturel canadien a l’Ambassade du Canada en France à Paris, at Somerset House in London, at the Goethe Institute in partnership with the Royal Institute of Art in Sweden, and at aceartinc., Nuit Blanche, the Graffiti Gallery, and various public spaces in Canada, as well as in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Scotland, and the USA. As a dancer she has performed with choreographers including Sandra Man and Moritz Majce, Egle Budvytyte, Nora Tormann, Clement Layes, JASAD, and Anne Collod, amongst others.
In addition to her dance education in Canada, Germany, and France, Amaya holds an MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies from the University of Cambridge, and a Post-Masters diploma from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm.
In 2018-2019, Amaya was a resident laureate at l’Abbaye du Royaumont under Hervé Robbe where she was supported by Les amis du Royaumont; a resident of La cité internationale des arts Paris in 2020-2021; and mentored by Matthias Mohr, director of RadialSystem, through the LAFT Mentorship Program in 2022-2023. Residencies include Tanzhaus Zürich (CH), Centre national de la danse Lyon (FR), and the Banff Centre Canada (CAN). Amaya was invited as a Never Walk Alone choreographer tour guide at Tanzplattform Deutschland 2022.
Next to and as part of her artistic work, Amaya writes regularly on dance and art for publications including Stream, Tanzschreiber, Tanzarchiv, TanzZeit, and Tanzfabrik Berlin. Amaya has presented her work at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Leiden; she teaches workshops and intensive courses, and provides lectures, critiques, and feedback sessions, including for the University of Cambridge Festival of Ideas, the University of Ghent, Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, the University of Manitoba, Lake Studios, and Tanzfabrik Berlin. She is a regular host and moderator of in-progress choreographic evenings at Lake Studios Berlin.
Building on her MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies and her work as an artist, Amaya has undertaken multi- and interdisciplinary research at the intersection of art, architecture, and urbanism. In 2016, Amaya founded the online platform MVT journal, which explores and brings visibility to projects at the intersection of architecture, art, and landscape. Since 2020, Amaya has been a part of the Kunst & Klima team at fabrik Potsdam, working to create spaces for reflection and dialogue on art, climate, change, and community. Selected by nGbk, in 2021 Amaya created work for the metro system and public spaces in Berlin. Beginning in 2022 under the umbrella CHOREOGRAPHING ARCHITECTURES, Amaya undertook a unique research and creation project funded by National Performance Netz, bringing together architects and choreographers in the creation of a new choreographic work and a series of public workshops, and in 2023 she brought her attention to exploring and documenting how the pandemic transformed the interior architecture of theatres. Currently, she continues with CHOREOGRAPHING ARCHITECTURES, performing the choreographic work, as well as creating and implementing unique formats for architects, artists, and researchers to exchange.
Amaya’s work has appeared in TAZ, Berlin Art Link, Tanzschreiber, Stream, Kaltblut, Re:visions, Tanznetz, and RBB, as well as La Liberté and the CBC, amongst others.