Joy Grad (she/her)

Senior Teaching Artist

Joy Grad has been teaching for Dancing Classrooms since 2013. She is a lifelong dancer with a BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan. She choreographed her own work for many years before branching out to learn various forms of multicultural folk and social dances. Along with her classical training she has studied Belly dance, Japanese dance, Hip Hop dance, and many social dances. She specializes in two swing genres of social dance; Lindy Hop and Balboa. She also has extensive experience as a Hip Hop dancer through professional classes and and performances.

Highlights of her dance career have been performing with Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane in their work Uncle Tom’s Cabin, performing modern dance at the Merce Cunningham Studio and at DIA in NYC as well as other venues, being a member of Karim Tonsy’s Egyptian Dance Theatre as a modern dance specialist, dancing Lindy Hop at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing in 2017, and performing since 2017 at WNBA games as a member of the Timeless Torches. The Torches are the official over-40 dance team of the WNBA’s New York Liberty basketball team. Highlights of her teaching career include coaching one 4^th grade ballroom team to win the Gold at our yearly Grand Finals competition in June, and watching all her students grow their dance and social skills, and their confidence through the joy of dance.