MARJA LANKINEN

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.

With 20+ years of experience, Marja teaches wellness practices rooted in therapeutics. 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. Marja also holds a 500-hour yoga certification from Annie Carpenter’s SmartFlow Yoga and 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 LA. 

In addition to yoga instruction, Marja is a poet and prospective scholar of 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 working on a certificate in African American Studies at Los Angeles Valley College. With a deep commitment to the interdisciplinary study of care networks and kinship communities, Marja’s academic interests sit at the intersection of American literature and African American Studies. Through continued study in conversation with and within community, she intends to take as an imperative what Robin D.G. Kelley reminds us all to do: “Find better ways of being together without hierarchy or exclusion, violence, or domination but with love, compassion, care, and friendship.” 

For more information on Marja Lankinen, please visit www.yogafordancers.com.