Fall Arts: How Pat Graney Builds Her Choreography, By excavating memory and emotion as a form of research.

Seattle has a tendency to produce choreographers who aren’t like anyone who came before them. Merce Cunningham and Mark Morris are probably the best known, but Pat Graney isn’t far behind. She’s been making dances since the 1970s; and in the dance world, where generations fly by like gnats, that’s a very long time.

Coming to Seattle in 1979, Graney landed in a dance community that was full of activity, with all kinds of newcomers bringing the energy of the dance boom with them. She found her cohort in the experimentalists who established On the Boards, which has offered a home for her work ever since. Like most young artists, she tried on multiple ideas, but some of her early interests still thread through her current work. Her primary values include language (both spoken and gestural communication), ritual activities, a keen eye for design, and a fondness for the unusual. You’ll see these all reflected in Girl Gods, which premieres next month.