ZACHARY SETO

My highest truth…

My name is Zachary. I believe in taking action with a twist, hence Zactiontwist. I am committed to living my prayer of creation with the Creator at the center of my heart and life.

From a very young age, I gave myself permission to dream and bring my visions to life. I am devoted to sharing stories by honouring and uplifting sacred sounds expressed through the canvas of the human body. The gifts of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness remain the strongest flame of inspiration within my creations.

Dance offers me the opportunity to stay curious and bring together so many of life's conversations that I care about, to play, experiment, and discover with. I am fascinated by incorporating the element of entertainment along with an invitation to go deeper into the mystery of life.

In my eyes, movement is a lifetime. A language. A universal method of translating expression from the human heart, between our existence and alternate realities. A form of storytelling that encapsulates what we have grown to become in this lifetime. Intricate energy that speaks to the soul of the world, having the ability to unite generations. Every experience in this life is one that we dance. A performance we play out. A story we choose to tell.

Zachary Seto is a Canadian dancer and choreographer. Drawing from his Chinese and Sri Lankan heritage, contemporary dance training, and studies in wisdom traditions, he creates choreographic works that investigate the body as a living archive of memory and knowledge. Through movement, Zachary explores how stories are woven across generations, cultures, and landscapes.

His work asks how we might remember our place within larger systems of kinship with one another, with our ancestors, and with the earth itself. He creates spaces where movement becomes both inquiry and invitation: a practice of listening, witnessing, and reimagining a new story for humanity.

Most recently, Zachary became the youngest choreographer commissioned by Ballet BC Annex, creating A Dance with Destiny for the company's 2024/25 season. The work premiered and toured across British Columbia alongside creations by Medhi Walerski and Micaela Taylor. His choreography has also been presented internationally, including at New York's Battery Dance Festival, where he later served on the selection committee for the festival's Young Voices in Dance program. Across Canada, he has created work through Dance Ontario's Creative Partnership Program and was a recipient of the Mississauga Arts Council's Dance on Film Grant.

A former member of The Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Zachary toured and performed nationally while training extensively in RAD Ballet and the José Limón Technique. He is currently entering his final year at SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Dance in New York, where he has a concentration in choreography and composition while studying the Martha Graham Technique, classical ballet, and contemporary and modern dance forms. As a performer, he has danced works by Bill T. Jones, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Roderick George, Olivier Coëffard, Jennifer Archibald, Colin Connor, and Doug Varone.

Zachary is the recipient of the Obremski/Works 2026 VISION Fellowship, the Frank Augustyn Award (2023), and the Dance Ontario Jacque Foesier Youth Award (2020).