Pat Graney

Choreographer Pat Graney began showing work at the (then) new entity On The Boards in 1979. Since then Graney has developed and performed a wide range of works that bridge disciplines and communities. Pat has received Choreography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for 11 consecutive years, as well as from Artist Trust, the Washington State Arts Commission, the NEA International Program, and National Corporate Fund for Dance and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2008, she was awarded both the Alpert Award and a US Artists Award in Dance. She is a 2013 recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award and a National Dance Project grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. Her work has been featured in Showcase and CityArts magazines.

Pat received a 2003 GAP to pay rehearsal fees for The Vivian Girls. Artist Henry Darger inspired the proposed new work. Darger’s work was discovered in his apartment after his death and consisted of many large-scale watercolor paintings and a 15,000 page text describing the trials and tribulations of “the Vivian girls” in the Realms of the Unreal. As in Tattoo, Pat’s full-length performance, she hoped to create with The Vivian Girls “an entirely new movement vocabulary.”

Pat also received a Fellowships in 1994 and 2002, GAPs in 1991 and 1994, and a 1997 President’s Award.

Read a special letter from Pat about the impact of supporting art at its source.