YOGA FOR DANCERS

BIO:

 

• A former professional dancer with a resumé including performing for Beyoncé, Oprah, and The Billboard Music Awards, Marja Lankinen is a yoga therapist who teaches wellness practices around the world.
   

• Credentialed in yoga therapy from Loyola Marymount University, Marja teaches from the lineage of Krishnamacharya and through the teaching of her teachers Dr. Larry Payne, Dr. Eden Goldman, Dr. Rick Morris, Dr. Lori Rubenstein Fazzio, and Felicia Tomasko. Additionally, Marja holds a 500-hour yoga certification from Annie Carpenter’s SmartFlow Yoga. She has also trained in trauma-informed yoga with Hala Khouri and Kyra Haglund at YogaWorks Santa Monica. 
   

• As the founder of Yoga for Dancers, a company focused on supporting dancer longevity and holistic wellness, Marja has guest taught for Harvard Dance Center, University of Southern California Kaufman School of Dance, Chapman University Dance Department, UCLA, ESPN, Coachella, Sweden’s Gothenburg Opera Dance Company, Shala Helsinki, LAX Paris, and lululemon Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam, Cannes, London, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago. From 2016 to 2018, Marja taught for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s summer intensives in Los Angeles, California. In 2018, she joined the Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s summer intensive faculty.
   

• In addition to yoga instruction, Marja is a poet and aspiring scholar of post-1945 American literature and African American Studies. An alumna of Harvard University, Marja completed her graduate studies in English in 2023. She also holds Associate Degrees in Natural Science and French from Los Angeles Valley College and a BA in English and Creative Writing, with a minor in Spanish, from the University of Michigan. Currently, she is concurrently studying at Harvard University and working on a certificate in African American Studies at Los Angeles Valley College. Marja's academic research focuses on secrets, clandestine communication systems, and language rebellions. By tracing individual and interlocking systems of encryption, Marja aims to study the types of care networks and kinship communities that were forged by those living and loving under surveillance. 
   

• As a teacher and aspiring scholar, Marja intends to take as an imperative what Robin D.G. Kelley reminds us all to do; that is, “Find better ways of being together without hierarchy or exclusion, violence, or domination but with love, compassion, care, and friendship.”​​​

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• This spring, Marja teaches weekly yoga classes at Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School. 

YOGA + HEALTH AND WELLNESS CERTIFICATIONS:

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• Yoga Therapy Rx, Loyola Marymount University with Dr. Larry Payne. 

 

• 500-hour SmartFlow Yoga, Exhale Center for Sacred Movement with Annie Carpenter. 

 

• 200-hour Hot Power Fusion, 100-hour Power Yoga, and CoreRestore, CorePower Yoga.

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• Soft Tissue Assessment and Myofascial Release for Bodyworkers and Yoga Teachers, Yoga Doctors Institute of Integrative Medicine with Dr. Eden Goldman.

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• Sugarfoot Therapy, MOTI Physical Therapy with Dr. Traci Ferguson and Katie Schaar Cutri.
   

• Trauma-Informed Yoga, YogaWorks Santa Monica with Hala Khouri and Kyra Haglund.

 

• Yoga Tune Up Level I, YogaWorks SoHo with Laurel Beversdorf and Elizabeth Wipff

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PREVIOUS RESIDENCIES:

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• Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio's scholarship program, Movement Lifestyle Dance Studio, Edge Performing Arts Center, and Millennium Dance Complex in Los Angeles, California.

 

• 20th-Century Fox Fitness Center, Disney Hyperion Fitness Center, YogaWorks, Paramount Studios, Sony Motion Pictures Studios, NBC Universal, ESPN, UCLA, Viacom, and Universal Music Group. 

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NATIONAL GUEST TEACHING  EXPERIENCE:

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• Harvard Dance Center (2023), Complexions Contemporary Ballet (2018) and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's (2016-2018) summer intensives at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, Coachella Music and Arts Festival, The Pulse On Tour, Velocity Dance Convention, USC Trojan Force Dance Team, Kreativ Mindz Academy, Tony Tzar's Blacklight Society, Kaba Modern Dance Company, Culture Shock LA, Mischief Makers, USC, UCLA, and Chapman University dance department, Diavolo Dance Company, Jacob Jonas Dance Company, Full Out Dance Studio's Unplugged Dance Retreat,  Dogpatch Dance Studio SF, and Matt Cady and Tovaris Wilson's Unique Dance Program.

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YOGA FOR ATHLETES: 

 

• Marja was the in-residency yoga instructor for the United States Tennis Association. 

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MENTORSHIP:

 

• Marja mentors rising dancers, choreographers, artists, and kind human beings through the Movement Lifestyle Dance Studio Work Study program. She believes in empowering the next generations of vanguards, voices, and vehicles for social, artistic, and political change. 

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TEACHER TRAINING/ASSISTING:

 

• Marja co-led the 200-hour Hot 8 Yoga power yoga teacher trainings in Beverly Hills (2014-2017).

 

• She assisted the 200-hour power yoga teacher training at Corepower Yoga Sherman Oaks in 2013.

 

• She also assisted Annie Carpenter and her 200-hour SmartFlow Yoga teacher training in Oakland, California (2016) as well as her Udaya Yoga Festival workshops in Bulgaria (2017). 

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RETREATS: 

 

• Marja co-led Hot 8 Yoga's first yoga retreat in Tulum, Mexico in 2014 with Omar Lopez. ​

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