Grace And Grooves, an award winning folk dance studio is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area. Ms. Hetal Joshi is their Founder and Artistic Director. They also do business as Grace Creations, an award winning fusion dance company, and Cqunce, Inc. Cqunce, Inc. is their non-profit effort to raise funds in order to help victims of crime.
Ms. Joshi describes Grace And Grooves as an elite, award winning Indian Folk Dance Company that specializes in Indian Folk Dances, Bharatnatyam and now Bollywood with straight history of Indian Performing Arts. Ms. Joshi completes 33 years of consistent training and performances and competitions in Indian Folk Dance, Bharatnatyam and off-late Bollywood.
According to Grace And Grooves’ mentors, their studio stands out from others because there has never been anybody in the entire Dallas-Fort-worth area that has straight background of Indian Performing Arts for so many years and that teaches technique focused Folk Dances of India. There are plenty of schools that claim to teach Folk Dance in name of Bollywood and other stuff they do, but they do not have experience and background as Ms. Joshi and her staff.
Ms. Joshi’s finds it is hard to single out her proudest moments as a coach. Examples of those “proudest moments” include teaching students of all ages starting at 4-5years old; contributing to choreography during Folk Dance, Bollywood and Bharatnatyam classes and teaching them to do the same in their respective category of dance that they join; seeing her Bharatnatyam students’ videos saying that their class is FUN and Happy; having Community Folk Dance Students say Grace And Grooves made it easy to follow; and Bollywood students saying that their class is cool even when they learn it for the sake of it. Their authentic folk dancers are the most advanced dancers that have amazing physical flexibility and endurance. Their couple workshop students’ often fall in love again.
She leaves the topic of the biggest mistakes dancers make to the dancers. She believes that if you are a dancer, you should be able to identify your mistakes and that very much includes fixing them so that kids are not hurt. If you cannot handle it, then just do not do it. Why play dirty politics at cost of kids or in name of service?
Ms. Joshi’s goals for this year is to expand with more students and locations, refine further in their work and continue what they are doing. Also, not to forget continue doing trainings to refine themselves and work on Cqunce Inc projects. *
Ms. Joshi, their founding member, was looking for a structured Folk Dance Program in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area when she discovered that her daughter started picking & liking folk dances better than Bollywood during her own lessons (competitive folk and fusion). After meeting several freelance Bollywood instructors and even trying one of them, she decided to have her join a Indian folk dance school as per program and talk with instructor. They waited and tried 2.5 years in-group, private lessons as assigned to her driving all way to nearby city while her daughter was just taught plain Bollywood with no techniques that could add value to any form or kind of dance. Her daughter was a victim of fraud, misrepresentation, abuse and malpractice. Upon investigating further, she learned that the instructor itself was involved in fraudulent dance activities and dirty politics with other competition scams in name of Indian folk dance at the cost of innocent kids. Looking at traumatic experiences that her daughter had gone through, Ms. Joshi did not want other kids to go through this mental agony and pain just for something fun and to learn their culture in the name of folk dance! When this happened, Ms. Joshi felt she was left with no choice but to found Grace And Grooves Dance School. She already had a rich experience since her childhood days of Indian competitions and performances and dealing with all age groups. For somebody who had been consistently dancing all her life, opening a company was just a matter of putting papers together. Since then, Grace And Grooves has been offering technique focused choreography work in Folk Dances of India, Bharatnatyam and off-late Bollywood with structured programs in all of these forms and dances. Her daughter now dances in Bharatnatyam, Folk Dances of India and Bollywood at a competitive level and is a role model to a lot of their students today.
Grace And Grooves receives constant mentoring from master choreographers and lead dancers in India for all their programs that is Bharatnatyam, Bollywood and Folk Dances of India. They offer community folk dance workshops as low as $25 for 2 hours; couple’s dance lessons, marriage dance lessons, and exclusive modern folk dance workshops where students learn to differentiate the forms, styles and various dances depending on their respective program. Authentic Folk Dance Workshops are taught to those who can commit to 15 to 20 hours depending on the folk dance they choose. Grace And Grooves performs regularly in several Indian festivals, fundraisers and at times representing India in various international festivals and fundraisers. Grace And Grooves welcomes students from all walks of life. A detailed list and the pictures of performances and competitions are available at http://graceandgrooves.com/aboutus.aspx. They also continue to compete regularly.
Enrollments happen throughout the year in all of their programs and recital is usually at the end of the year depending on program you join. A one-time free trial class is available for anyone who wants to try dancing before committing to taking lessons.
If you would like more information about Grace And Grooves, visit their website at www.graceandgrooves.com, email them at info@graceandgrooves.com or call them at 972-979-2559. You can also “Like” them on Facebook connect with them on Twitter.
Anyone who has danced at Grace And Grooves or with any of the instructors, is invited to comment on our blog.
. . . if you are a dancer, you should be able to identify your mistakes . . .
