Grace Constantine, belly dance fusion dancer/instructor

Grace Constantine is a guru of solo fusion improvisational belly dance. A lifelong dancer, Grace's belly dance journey began over twenty years ago. She is the founder & artistic director of Deviant Dance Company, and maintains a thriving teaching practice at The Lair, her private studio in Portland, Oregon.
She has taught belly dance workshops for ivy-league (Columbia University) and public schools (Portland Public School District), and is proud to be an instructor at Tribal Fest, JamBallah, & Belly Dance Fantasy Festival, and Belly Dance Cave Camp.
Grace won Zaghareet! Magazine's Golden Belly award for Best Kept Secret in Belly Dance 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.

Grace's philosophy in unique: 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.

A world of urban culture and untamed nature has straddled all her life. Her Native American culture colored her early summers on the reservation in the Arizona desert (Grace is a proud member of the Maricopa Indian Tribe), and remain a counterpoint to her life as an urban indian. She has always been most inspired by nature, and has extensively studied & worked in horticulture & wildlife habitat. Grace's work is further inspired by her world travels, and the beauty she has seen along the way.

Grace took her first belly dance lessons in 1990, and began dedicated study with Tatseena in 1996 at the age of nineteen. She has also studied modern, tap, Haitian, and West African dances, and began learning yoga at the age of three.