Pat Graney is an American activist and

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

, based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. She founded the Pat Graney Dance Company in 1991, and continues to serve as its artistic director and executive director.

Childhood and education

Born in

Chicago, IL (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, she moved to St. Augustine, FL with her mother and three siblings to be closer to extended family after the passing of her father in an accident. In St. Augustine her mother ran a book shop and antique shop in the ground floor of their house, exposing Graney to a world of literature that would greatly influence her creative work. Graney moved with her mother and siblings as well to

Mechanicsville, Virginia Mechanicsville is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Hanover County, Virginia, United States. The population was 36,348 during the 2010 census, up from 30,464 at the 2000 census. History The area was settled by English ...

and

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

due to her mother getting remarried. She left home before completing high school, but was able to graduate through night classes back in St. Augustine, while living alone and supporting both herself and her younger brother. She went on to attend various colleges around the country, including

Tallahassee Community College Tallahassee Community College (TCC) is a public community college in Tallahassee, Florida. It is part of the Florida College System and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. As of fall 2017, TCC reported 24,639 stu ...

(

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In ...

) and

The Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...

(

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. European ...

), before finishing at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. In Arizona, she studied extensively with John M. Wilson at the School of Dance, and received a BFA in 1979, at which time she moved to Seattle.

Activism

A feminist activist as well as a choreographer, Graney has worked with teens in the Seattle school system who have been identified as having been

trafficked ''Trafficked'' is a 2017 American thriller drama film directed by Will Wallace and starring Ashley Judd, Sean Patrick Flanery and Anne Archer. Plot In California, Sara is eighteen and has to leave her foster home; she is offered training to be a ...

''Keeping the Faith – The Prison Project''

In 1992, Graney began a non-religious arts-based educational residency program ''Keeping the Faith – The Prison Project'', intended to enrich the lives of incarcerated women and girls. As of 2013, the program works mainly with the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in

Belfair, Washington Belfair is a census-designated place in Mason County, Washington, United States. Located at the mouth of the Union River at Hood Canal, it serves as the commercial center of North Mason County. The population of the surrounding area grows in th ...

, but has made artistic interventions in places as diverse as Japan, Ireland, and Germany. The program introduces writing poetry, collaboratively creating dance pieces, visual arts and sign language. It is one of the nation's longest-running prison arts programs.

Choreography

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation describes her work as "featur nga diverse set of movement vocabularies that range from ballet to gymnastics to martial arts; explorations of female identity and power; and rich visuals." Seattle's

On the Boards On the Boards (OtB) is a non-profit contemporary performing arts organization in Seattle, Washington, founded in 1978. Originally located at Washington Hall in the Central District, the organization moved in 1998 to their current location in U ...

writes that "she often explores female identity and power, taking movement inspiration from ballet to gymnastics to martial arts to slapstick." Graney's 2004 piece ''The Vivian Girls'' was based on the drawings and stories of

Henry Darger Henry Joseph Darger Jr. (; April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American writer, novelist and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy novel ma ...

; her ''Faith Triptych'', consisting of ''Faith'' (1991), ''Sleep'' (1995), and ''Tattoo'' (2001), was presented in 2010 at On the Boards. ''House of the Mind'' explored Alzheimer's through Graney's experience with her mother's loss of memory. Graney created ''Girl Gods'' in 2015 to explore the rage of women and girls in the face of social pressure and mistreatment. It draws from work by

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

and

Ana Mendieta Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. Born in Havana, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961. Earl ...

Awards

Graney has received the

Alpert Award in the Arts The Alpert Award in the Arts was established in the 1994 by The Herb Alpert Foundation in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, Cali ...

(2008), a

USA Fellowship United States Artists (USA) is a national arts funding organization based in Chicago. USA is dedicated to supporting living artists and cultural practitioners across the United States by granting unrestricted awards. Mission The organization' ...

(2008) a

Doris Duke Doris Duke (November 22, 1912 – October 28, 1993) was an American billionaire tobacco heiress, philanthropist, art collector, Horticulture, horticulturalist, and socialite. She was often called "the richest girl in the world". Her great wealt ...

Award (2013).

Notes

External links

Pat Graney Company

Keeping the Faith (Pat Graney Dance Company)
YouTube, posted July 23, 2008.
Chamber Dance Company Archive: Pat Graney
University of Washington Chamber Dance Company, Research Guide on the site of University of Washington Libraries. {{DEFAULTSORT:Graney, Pat Living people American choreographers Artists from Seattle People from St. Augustine, Florida Tallahassee Community College alumni Evergreen State College alumni University of Arizona alumni People from Mechanicsville, Virginia Year of birth missing (living people)