Sébastien Mari began his dance education in the Conservatory of his hometown La Rochelle (France) with Colette Milner, Marie Paule Cantenys, Karin Wahener and Bertrand Papillon. After graduating with the Gold Medal of the Conservatories of France, he started his career in 1989 with the Jeune Ballet de France 7 and 8 (France) under the direction of Robert Berthier before joining Nederlands Dans Theater (The Netherlands), with Jiri Kylian. After 6 years with NDT he joined the Compania Nacional de Danza (Spain) with Nacho Duato, where he remained for 4 years. He then joined Ballet Gulbenkian (Portugal) directed by Iracity Cardoso and Paulo Ribeiro for 3 years. During this time he danced numerous works from choreographers such as Nacho Duato,Mats Ek,William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, Ohad Naharin, Hans Van Manen , Mauro Bigonzetti, Claude Brumachon, Stijn Celis, Marie Chouinard, Patrick Delcroix, Nicolo Fonte, Itzik Galilli, Jacques Garnier, Cesc Gelabert, Patrick de Bana, Hervé Jourdet, Nadine Hernu, Rui Horta, Amanda Miller, Martino Müller, Gideon Obarzanek, Angelin Preljocaj, Paulo Ribeiro, Enrique Rodovalho, Yvonice Satie, Paul Selwyn-Norton, Patricia Tuerling and Didy Veldman. He spent the following 5 years both dancing or assinting freelance projects.
From 2009 until July 2014, Sébastien has been part of Ballettmainz (Germany) under the direction of Pascal Touzeau, first as a dancer in several choreographies by Pascal Touzeau, William Forsythe, and since 2011, as a coordinator, ballet master and rehearsal director for Davy Brun, Johan Inger, Jiri Kylian, Douglas Lee, Georg Reischl, Pascal Touzeau, Didy Veldman.
Since 2014, Sébastien Mari is an international ballet master/assistant. He has been invited to share his ballet classes to the Ballet du Rhin (France), to the Ballet de Genève (Switzerland), in Germany to Ballett Chemnitz, Tanztheater Giessen, Ballett im Revier, Ballett Koblenz,Ballett Saarbrucken, Theater Regensburg Tanz, Theater Nordhausen, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Tanztheater Münster; in The Nederlands to Introdans, Henny Jurriens Stichting, Korzo Theater and Scapino Ballet and in Spain to Associació de Professionals de la Dansa de Catalunya.
As to pre-professional and dance formations, he also proposes and teaches a variety of repertoire workshops from renowned choreographers David Dawson, Georg Reischl, Pascal Touzeau, Jeroen Verbruggen.
He gave his master classes and workshops to Conservatoire National de La Rochelle and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Lyon in France, in Italy to Dance Factory of Art, to Accademia Nazionale di Roma, In Portugal to Pallco and in Spain, to ARTdance International Dance Program, to IBStage (artistic director of IBStage Contempo 2019) La Companyia, Centre de Dansa de Catalunyia, Institut del Teatre, to Obrador de Moviments.
From his own experience, with a variety of crosstraining methods such as Yoga, Gyrotonics and Alexander technique, and with ballet teachers which he admires and learnt a lot from throughout his career, Sébastien has developed a system of teaching ballet classes which is basic and comprehensive for professional contemporary dancers and challenging for professional ballet dancers.