Deviant Dance—The Company


Deviant Dance Company
bellydance fusion devoted to delectable storytelling and the deep spirit of dance

Deviant Dance Company is delighting audiences at all kinds of festive occasions in the Portland area and beyond. They can be found at family-friendly outdoor festivals such as the Woodstock Festival & California Renaissance Faire, as well as lavish settings like the Fez Ballroom & Alberta Rose Theater. Deviant Dance collaborates with live musicians including The Rhythm Keepers, Negara, & Wood Vibrations. See the schedule page for upcoming shows, or the booking page if you would like Deviant Dance to perform at your next event. Deviant Dance constantly updates their creations—here are the ongoing themes: Calypso's Treasure is a beautiful farce about a day in the life of seashell-clad sea nymphs and their underwater games, including the traditional jellyfish dance Metallurgy of Magic tells of spirits made of pure gold who live in the sky, creating the metals of earth and rewarding mortals who measure up to the golden mean Summer Dreams a band of traveling gypsies lures the townsfolk into a vivid dream with their colorful costumes and sword dancing until the crowd wishes to join the fun Dark Machinations get a taste of dark merrymaking with this voodoo-inspired tale of the recently departed Created in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2003 by Grace and Qamar, Deviant Dance was born from an obsession with bellydance and fairy tales. After relocating to Portland Oregon, having various incarnations and amazing guest performers, Deviant Dance Company continues to tell wonderful tales. Deviant Dance Company's current members are Grace, Stephanie, Erika, and Sheila. Erika and Stephanie met Grace in 2008, while they were dedicated students of Grace's in her advanced class. The two became part of Deviant Dance in 2009. Sheila is Grace's younger sister. Now attending Columbia University, Sheila performs with Deviant Dance every summer. Grace devises the heart of the story, choreography, visual presence and sound, while Stephanie, Erika, and Sheila each imbue the tale with their own unique interpretation and style, giving the story luster. The dance is forged with care and dedication, fashioning mesmerizing technique with a sheen of playful sensuality. Scroll down to meet the dancers.

	Grace ~ Director Grace is a performer and instructor of fusion bellydance based in Portland, Oregon. In addition to her solo work and work as director of Deviant Dance, she is also a member of Serpent Sirens and Dreams of Cleopatra, based in the Bay Area. 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. Grace's work is influenced by her Native American heritage and her travels in Central America and South-East Asia, particularly Bali, Indonesia. Grace is incredibly grateful to her many instructors over the years, but special mention must be given to Grace's wonderful teacher and director Tatseena, who has nurtured Grace's talents for over a decade, and to the groundbreaking Bert Balladine, whose contributions to the art helped shape bellydance in the United States, and who will be missed and lovingly remembered by many.
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 met Grace and began performing as a member of 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 artform 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.
	Erika ~ Performer 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, Erika has been a student of the performing arts since the time she spent growing up in community theatres with bawdy actors and tumbley stagehands. She began to study bellydance fusion after moving to Arizona in 2004. Her instructor, a lifelong student of dance and yoga, taught a fusion style of bellydance, incorporating contact improv, yoga, West African, Indian, hiphop, Modern, acro, and other forms of performance and movement arts with tribal bellydance. After moving to Portland she sought a group of dancers who were interested in using dance as a medium for story-telling and creative ritual and found Grace and her troupe, Deviant Dance. Erika currently performs with with the amazing ladies of Deviant Dance in and around the Portland area, she currently studies Neo-Tribal with Jane Archer, and collaborates in multiple side projects including acro-clown performance and fire dance. Her dance is a melding of bellydance world fusion with modern acro and contact dance, inspired by the arts of storytelling, folklore, and invoking of audience interaction. See her home page here.
Sheila ~ Performer Sheila is currently studying at Columbia University in New York—where she is a member of the Columbia University Bellydance Team—but she is also an ongoing member of Deviant Dance Company when in Portland, performing every summer. At five years old she learned to roll her belly from her older sister Grace, 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. She 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.