“Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.” 

― Andrei Tarkovsky

Joni Österlund is the Finnish-born dancer-choreographer graduated from the Finnish National Ballet school in Helsinki and obtained his B.A. in the Hungarian Dance Academy in Budapest. Years 2016-2019 he worked as an ensemble dancer in the Eger National Theatre and from 2019 he is a freelancing artist.​

His priority is on working with diverse movement and performance practice to collaborate with different disciplines in a frame of theatre laboratory, which allows for exchange and co-learning. Renewing the old artistic and managerial structures is of top importance.

For Joni, patterns of our humanity and the systems we have constructed to sustain us act as inspiration. Comparative dramaturgy and performance research act as the guiding tools.  

​From 2019 Joni has worked with a multitude of theatres and festivals: Staatsoper Wien, Volksoper Wien, Theater an der Wien, Salzburger Festspiele, Styriarte, La Strada Graz