Wilhelmina Ojanen

Wilhelmina is a Finnish-born, Chilean-raised contemporary dance artist based between London and Finland. Wilhelmina completed her training at Trinity Laban, graduating with a Distinction from her Master’s in Dance Performance - Transitions. As a performer, Wilhelmina has most recently worked with Hagit Yakira, Richard Chappell, Jarkko Partanen, Ben Wright and Stephanie Schober. Wilhelmina is an accredited Authentic Flow Yoga Teacher.

 An emerging choreographer, Wilhelmina is currently a Young Associate Artist at Sadler's Wells. She has recently made work for Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio, The Place Theatre and the Laban Theatre, and she premiered her large-scale piece LAND at Sadler’s Wells Main Stage in July 2019. Wilhelmina’s choreographic work delves into realities of human connection; studying poetically, through movement, our relations to one another and the world around us. Her work explores the intersection of physicality and poetry, of softness and strength, and of memory and embodiment.

Wilhelmina will be taking part in Möbius Atelier - Choreographic Intensive, and then further develop her R&D into a 45 min piece. Her new work will aim to locate itself at the meeting point of research into body memory / embodied cognition and a poetic way of appreciating the beautiful, small and tender details of our bodies. Delving into the world of neuroscience, Wilhelmina has been deeply affected by Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book The body keeps the score, where he talks about how past trauma can stay stored in our bodies and have a profound and ongoing effect on our physicality. In this piece she would like to challenge performers and audience to reflect on how they see their bodies, themselves and others as part of this world, and discover how that manifests in their actions.

Photo: Helen Murray