Marja Lankinen | marjayoga

BIO:

Founder of Yoga for Dancers, Marja Lankinen teaches yoga in Cambridge, Massachusetts and around the world. She is a yoga therapist and LA Yoga Magazine staff writer. She is also a recent Harvard graduate student and prospective scholar studying secrets, clandestine communication systems, resistance practices, language rebellions, and the type of care networks forged by those living and loving under surveillance as they have been recorded in post-1945 African American literature.

DANCE BACKGROUND:

Marja danced for Beyoncé, Oprah, The Billboard Awards, The Grammys, E! Entertainment, The Lumineers, Twista, Oli Da Haitian Prince, Laurieann Gibson, and Frank Gatson.

She was the Executive Director of Dance2XS Dance Company - University of Michigan. She also danced for Chicago's Boom!Crack Dance Company and toured internationally.

YOGA + HEALTH AND WELLNESS CERTIFICATIONS:

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.

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

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.

PREVIOUS RESIDENCIES:

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.

INTERNATIONAL GUEST TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Gothenburg Opera Dance Company, ISY Studio (Hamburg, Germany), Shala Helsinki (Finland), and lululemon Paris, Cannes, Zurich, London, Amsterdam, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago.

NATIONAL GUEST TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

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.

YOGA FOR ATHLETES:

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

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.

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).

RETREATS:

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

2025 TEACHING SCHEDULE:

This spring, Marja teaches at Harvard Business School and Down Under School of Yoga.