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Grace Constantine ~ Performer & Director

Grace Constantine is a guru of improvisational fusion bellydance.  A lifelong dancer, her belly dance journey began over twenty years ago.  She is founder & director of Deviant Dance Company, and maintains a thriving teaching practice at the Lair, her private studio in Portland, Oregon.  She has taught improv bellydance workshops for ivy-league (Columbia University) & public schools (Portland Public School District), and is proud to be an instructor at Tribal Fest, Jamballah, and Belly Dance Cave Camp.

Grace won Zaghareet magazine’s Golden Belly Award for Best Kept Secret in Bellydance in 2008.  Her passion and stage presence have enthralled audiences across the country.  Her unique style is imbued with intricate beauty, wild improvisation, and powerful storytelling.

Deviant describes Grace’s philosophy: that each dancer must be different—deviating from 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 & 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 by bringing the performer, the audience, the music, and the environment into a universe of pure expression.

Grace is honored to work with the wonderful artists in Deviant Dance, and in the delightful community that is forming the artistic renaissance of belly dance we find ourselves in today.

For more information about performances, workshops, or scheduling private lessons from Grace, visit her website:

graceconstantine.com

Erika Ryn ~ Performer

Erika has been a lover of the vaudevillian cirque and theatric arts since age 6 when she saw a woman fly around the circus tent—strung from only her hair—while drinking a cup of tea! She began to study bellydance fusion and other movement arts after moving to Arizona in 2004.  Her instructor—a lifelong student of dance and yoga incorporated contact improv, yoga, West African, Indian, hiphop, Modern, acro, and other forms of movement arts with tribal bellydance.

Transplanting her roots to Portland, OR in 2008, Erika sought out an instructor with whom she could further not only her dance technique, but her love for the theatre and fantastical story telling.  She fortuitously shimmied into Grace Constantine and began taking her advanced classes before joining her troupe, Deviant Dance, at the beginning of 2009.

Bellydance is a movement which plants roots in our core and blossoms out our fingertips.  Dance and music are universal languages, communication which requires no understanding of our world's varied dialects.  Erika's performances are driven by this language, telling a story, unfolding it's curves through the lyrical connections between the movement, the music, and the audience.

Since moving to Portland, OR she has been continuously amazed and inspired by the breadth of talented dancers and performance artists she has had the privilege of sharing the stage with!  In addition to performing with Deviant Dance, she performs acro-circus storytime with Motion Magic, and is a co-founder of Bridgetown Revue.

To find out more about Erika Ryn’s other projects, visit:

redskyryn.net

Stephanie ~ Performer

Stephanie’s bellydance roots began in her childhood, smack-dab in the middle of suburbia.  Originally taught by her mother Nancy and friends, Stephanie tagged along to bellydance rehearsal, proudly dressed in her mini-bellydancer regalia.  Over the next twenty years, she visited and revisited bellydance with many instructors and several troupes, complimenting her learning with years of experience in theater arts and music performance.

  In 2008, she began studying in Grace Constantine’s advanced class and was asked to join Deviant Dance in 2009. Stephanie brings authenticity, creativity and non-conformity to her sultry jazz and ballet influenced style.  She views bellydance as an expressive art form and applies to it her basic philosophy of life and art: Love what you’re making, work hard on it technically, and most importantly, with candor and humor, make it a reflection of what and where and who you are.

In addition to dance, Stephanie is an accomplished oral historian, archivist and writer.  She has penned several non-fiction pieces, including a recent article on Deviant Dance Company published in Jareeda magazine.  She is currently working on an in-depth interview of Grace that she looks forward to publishing in 2012. 

Veena~ Performer

 Veena became addicted to bellydance in 2008.  While still being comparatively new to bellydance, she is not new to the broken ragdoll world of the stage.  Veena has a deep rooted and eclectic background in live performance. She has worked with both the Portland based dark circus ‘Societas Insomnia’; as well as performing in ‘Power Circus’, a theatrical spine-chilling improvisation band. 

Veena initially spent three years studying an Egyptian style of belly dance, before—being driven by her desire to learn a more free form style of belly dance movement—she began to study with Grace Constantine in 2011. Soon after Lana was invited to join Deviant Dance as its newest member.

In addition to dance, Veena is also an accomplished artist. Deriving her inspiration from circus performance, broken toys, improvisation, and rhythmic movement, she creates beautifully eccentric and outlandish costumes and accessories.

To find out more about Veena’s other projects, visit:

crudethings.com

Sheila Heath ~ Performer

Sheila is currently studying at Columbia University in New York—where she is a member of the Columbia University Bellydance Team (where she won “Best Belly Roll” at the 2011 Intercollegiate Middle Eastern Dance Conference) —but she is also an ongoing member of Deviant Dance Company in Portland, performing every summer.

At five years old Sheila learned to roll her belly from her older sister Grace Constantine, and has loved bellydance ever since. Her first year of formal study was at the age of twelve with Tatseena (Grace's own marvelous teacher) and her primary instructor since that time has been Grace herself. Sheila is a former member of Tatseena's troupe Dreams of Cleopatra, and she has performed with Deviant Dance since 2004.

Sheila believes that exceptional dance requires exceptional dedication. Her dance appears to be effortless, and her fluidity, grace, and technicality are truly captivating.

The Performers

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