ABOUT:
Hi, I’m Sanna Ansaldo, Actor, Director, Yoga Teacher, and Movement Artist living and creating on Whadjuk Noongar Land in Boorloo (Perth).
I grew up between Sweden and Italy, carrying both cultures with me. Swedish presence, Italian intensity, along with four languages and a lifelong love for stories that move across borders, bodies, and ways of being. My background has shaped me into someone who is curious, sensitive to nuance, and always looking for the connection beneath the surface.
A quote often attributed to Pablo Picasso guides me:
“The meaning of life is to find your gift.
The purpose of life is to give it away.”
I’ve come to see uncertainty as a kind of creative terrain, the place where anything can unfold. Instead of trying to control it, I try to meet it with curiosity. The unknown excites me because it keeps me awake, honest, and willing to grow. That’s where the next part of my practice, and my life, always begins.
As an actor, I’m interested in presence, honesty, and the emotional truth that lives beneath the text. I’m drawn to characters whose inner worlds are textured, conflicted, or quietly burning, people who hold contradictions and stories that don’t fit neatly in one box.
For me, the most powerful moments are the ones that feel lived rather than performed. When something real flickers through, even for a second. That’s the work I’m devoted to: alive, curious, present. There is always a story.
As a director, I’m fascinated by ensemble energy and by the space where ritual meets play. My directing practice is collaborative and exploratory - I like building worlds with people, asking questions, following impulses, and letting structure emerge from collective imagination.
I’m drawn to heightened worlds, symbolic images, and the emotional logic beneath absurdity. I’m interested in what happens when the sacred and the ridiculous sit side by side, when humour and grief blur, or when a simple action suddenly becomes mythic.
I care about creating spaces where performers feel safe to take risks, surprise themselves, and discover new possibilities.
Movement is the foundation of everything I do. I began teaching yoga and embodied movement when I was seventeen, after a movement teacher told me I wasn’t breathing properly, a moment that ended up reshaping how I relate to my body, my creativity, and my work.
Yoga keeps me grounded, curious, and connected. It teaches me presence - the same presence I bring into my acting and directing. Whether I’m working with students, creating a piece, or preparing for a role, movement is where I return when I need clarity or recalibration.
For me, breath is the through-line: the thing that ties together art, embodiment, discipline, and emotional truth.
I believe theatre, like yoga, is a practice of union: of self and other, of body and story, of laughter and grief. My work, whether performing, directing, or teaching, always circles back to this question:
How can we meet each other fully, here and now?
