Blessyl Buan is a multigenerational, multidisciplinary artist whose expressions span from healing, visual and dance arts. She has an Honours Bachelor degree in Kinesiology from McMaster University (2001) and a Doctor of Chiropractic from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (2005). She was sought as a clinician and a consultant for performing artists.

In 2020, BIPOC Dance Health was initiated to provide a resource for BIPOC dancers, create education and to improve and dismantle the health inequities that exist in dance medicine and allied dance health services. Always a dancer, she has four decades of dance performance experience. Notably, she danced on film and television for 17 years and was a principal dancer with Hataw Performing Arts (2014-16) which was featured on CBC Arts. She self-produced and choreographed two dance videos “Fly in the 6” (2016) and “Rara: Reweaving Diasporic Stories” (2022).

In 2023, she will be a featured artist for Toronto Dance Theatre’s Plug-N-Play residency where she will explore themes of cultural erasure, identity and ceremony through the interplay of natural materials and movement.

As an arts consultant, she was member of the Nuit Blanche In View Peer Assessment team via East End Arts(2022). She is a regular Active Listener for Balancing Act’s Affinity Groups and the Conference of Care. She has been regular contributor for the magazine The Dance Current, Turnout Radio CIUT 89.5FM and the creator and producer of the video podcast series: “Momentum Live: The Mindset, Drive & Movement of Creative High Performers” (2018).

She is the creative and founder of buankissed, a sustainable, handmade jewellery line that catalyzes stories, champions culture and empowers community. (Featured on CBC news, OMNI Filipino TV, Toronto Artscape Artist Gift Guide, East End Arts and Scarborough Arts).

Today, she is taking a pause as a community healer to centre her wellbeing, focus on raising her four children and to build an artistic practice. This collective body of work heals her spirit and influences future generations navigating the journey of living beyond repression.