Joni Österlund is a Finnish performance artist and creator based in Vienna. He trained at the Finnish National Opera Ballet School and the Hungarian Dance Academy, and worked as a company artist at Gárdonyi Géza Theater in Eger, Hungary from 2016 to 2019, performing between 135 and 155 performances per season. His practice spans contemporary dance, ballet, physical theater, stage fighting, and speaking roles.

Since relocating to Vienna in 2019, he has worked as a freelance artist across stages, festivals, and productions of varying scale - on stage and behind it. Recent work includes choreography for Marie-Eve Signeyrole’s production of Roméo et Juliette at Theater an der Wien, choreographic collaboration with the Festspielhaus St. Pölten community-dance project and the Albanian Dance Theater in Tirana, and ongoing work with Company Flying Elephant, Eno Péçi, and tanzt. with Rebecca Horner and Andrey Kaydanovskiy. He provides movement coaching in various contexts, including the Stimme, Leib und Seele program in Salzburg.

His work on screen includes László Nemes’s Sunset (2018).

Parallel to performance work, Joni is developing a practice in choreographic direction and scenic composition: the research question being when and how a physical state becomes legible for an audience. He completed the Pyörre leadership and project management program at the Helsinki Arts University, and is invested in building sustainable, accessible structures for independent artists within the European cultural field.