Deviant Dance--Home

Deviant Dance is devoted to new ideas--deviating from the norm, forging a new path to a mythical realm. Grace is a performer and instructor of fusion bellydance based in Portland, Oregon. In addition to her solo work, she is the director of Deviant Dance, and a member of Serpent Sirens and Dreams of Cleopatra based in the Bay Area, directed by Tatseena. Grace won Zaghareet Magazine's Golden Belly award for Best Kept Secret in 2008. Her passion and stage presence have enthralled audiences in the Pacific Northwest, the San Francisco Bay Area, and beyond. Her unique style is imbued with intricate beauty, wild improvisation, and powerful storytelling.

Traveling often as a child between the magical land of Hollywood, CA, and her Indian reservation in the heart of the Arizona desert, Grace has straddled the worlds of urban culture and untamed nature ever since. A lifelong dancer, she choreographed solo interpretive dances at an early age and began learning yoga from her mother at the age of three. Between 1982 and 1996 Grace studied tap, modern, Haitian, and West African dances. She took her first belly dance lesson in 1990, and began formal study in 1996 at the age of nineteen. Her work is influenced by her Native American heritage and her travels in Central America and Southeast Asia, particularly Bali, Indonesia.

Grace's solo dances are always improvised. Deviant describes her philosophy: that each dancer must be different--deviating from everyone else, for every dancer has a unique spirit, a singular mythology that comes from experience and imagination that no other can describe. Grace devotes her art to representing both the light and the dark, that which is sacred, sensual, and absurd. She strives to express in dance the magic of this strange world with devotion and reverence.

"To watch Grace perform is to leave the mundane behind and be initiated into a realm of humor, beauty, ecstasy, and creativity. She has inspired me to dance outside the belly dance box and seek to tell the stories within the dance. Grace is a mystical experience seasoned with a fine sprinkling of absurdity. It doesn't get any better than that!" ~ Pamela

"Grace's artistry is mesmerizing. It draws from a fusion of many artistic dance styles that range from very dramatic to fun and mischievous. She performs with a playful openness you rarely see today." ~ Tatseena

"Grace is an inspiration to me because she takes dance and creates a powerful performance that can be many things: exotic, strange, beautiful, and humorous. Grace has shown me how to dance beyond the set boundaries and create a story from my heart. Grace is one of the most creative and wonderfully down to earth people I've ever met!" ~ Tenya