Biography

Joni Österlund 

 

Born in Finland, Pori is a dancer and choreographer living in Vienna since 2019. 

The dancer started his training with the Dance School Liisa Nojonen while intimately connected to Pori Dance Company under the directorship of Liisa Nojonen.
 

Advancing to study in the Finnish National Ballet School, he worked with Jorma Uotinen (Black Water), Kenneth Greve (Snow Queen) learning also parts from Mats Ek’s Swan Lake. 

After receiving a scholarship to attend dance master classes in Salzburg from Peter Breuer, Ildiko Pongor and
Fabrice Edelmann Joni chose to complete a Bachelor degree in Classical Ballet in Budapest’s Hungarian Dance Academy while dancing in works from Tamás Juronics (Magic Flute), Guyla Harangozó (Square Concert) and Seregi László (Sylvia, Faust).
 

During the years 2016-2019 Joni danced in a multitude of musicals, operettas and contemporary ballet evenings with the Eger Dance Company in Gardonyí Géza Theatre in the city of Eger, Hungary directed by Tamás Topolánszky.

Artistic Statement

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The dancer-choreographer aims to build an archive of tools, experiences, and memories through research in connection with multidisciplinary artists. As an individual artist still looking to belong and share in a community, Österlund's priority is on understanding the artistically articulate ways of movement and its genre-specific ways to convey an idea outwards in the structure of performance art and theatre.
 

Current themes revolve around deconstructing and putting on display the patterns of our society as a highly sharing and communicative species needing to better oneself and the systems we have constructed around us. The interest is in opposites as a base for a conflict. Duality gives a reason to tackle a creative task. Österlund uses polarisation as a base to approach the performance aspect of putting the arts on display. 

Österlund finds a balance between the severe and carefree creating dance through intuition while melding a multitude of different genres and creative expertise while discovering the unexpected.