IT TAKES HUMILITY or chutzpah to invite a critic to see a rough draft. Since this article was due the day Pat Graney was giving the first preview of her new dance piece, Tattoo, she let me watch a run-through, even though most of the set and lighting weren't in place. What I saw included (among other things) dresses shaped like lamp shades; twitching hands and long flailing hair; a veil of falling sand; a dancer in black hot pants and towering white platform heels; and deliciously lean, almost mathematically precise group dances interspersed with frenzied or minimal solos and duets, mostly performed in high-heeled shoes -- all of it greatly enhanced by Amy Denio's atmospheric score. Graney often introduces a prop -- say, an unlaced black boot with long orange laces -- and then explores how a dance can be shaped around it. But what makes her work particularly exciting is how fluid the mood is; a gesture -- say, a dancer wrapping an orange bootlace around her ankle -- can be simultaneously playful and ominous.

Bret Fetzer: What does the title of Tattoo refer to?

Pat Graney: It's about the idea of genetic memory, in very broad terms; the memories that live in your body, what your genetic heritage is. The first part of the dance is nude, with full-body tattoos -- the dancers are naked in this low light; you see them walking through these bones [which are made of ice]. Then there are some see-through Victorian costumes with tattoos underneath them; then it goes into that weird bird thing with the long hair. Then it just becomes snapshots, kind of from history but not that literal, different impressions of people in space. The show is part of a triptych; the beginning was Faith, and then Sleep, and now Tattoo. Hopefully in another two years I'll show all three pieces in one evening.

Are you trying to communicate these ideas of genetic memory to the audience? Or are they a foundation for something the audience can interpret however they want?

The second one. You can't anticipate what anyone else thinks.

To my mind, dance is not a good medium for abstract ideas.

I don't care if you're writing or you're sewing or whatever -- if you're inside of what you're doing, it will be communicated to people in a real way, a human way. People asked me at the beginning of my career, "Aren't you worried people won't be able to access this?" How do I know what they're going to think? That's so condescending. I hope that something resonates, reminds people of a feel of something. I don't know what exactly that will be. It's been a great process; the shoes and all the foot stuff -- I didn't start with that at all.

Let's talk about the shoes.

I love shoes.

Shoes are a fine thing.

We all bought 1940s shoes and then had them copied in Ecuador. Carla [Barragan, one of the dancers] is from Ecuador, and she sent the shoes to her mother and had them made by a shoemaker -- he got a great price for the economy there, but for us it was like $20 a pair. They were remade exactly; they're beautiful. Shoes indicate a lot about female sexuality. They're so interesting, shoes and feet. The movement material that you saw in the piece is made up from compositional problems, like wrapping up a book with your feet.

By "movement material" you mean...

The material to make the movement phrases.

The vocabulary of the dance. The individual motions.

Right. If you were going to wrap a book in paper and tie it up, and you had to do that with your feet, how would you do it? Then break that up in tango rhythm; then break it up in other ways -- do it slow; do it fast; do it in different qualities; and where do we go with that? I wanted to get to extreme contrast and breadth of movement; really, really small, specific things and then really, really wild things -- just have this whole scope of movement in there -- essentially, to figure out what I think is beautiful, because I'm not sure what I think is beautiful anymore. Being a woman in contemporary culture, just thinking about all these fucking incredible amounts of stimuli -- what resonates really? Is it an idea, is it an emotional response? Because all that stimulus is essentially crap. What comes through that?

You've been making dance in Seattle for the past 20 years. Consistently, in Seattle, choreographers reach a certain point and then they leave town.

Funny you should say that at this moment.

I was going to ask why and how you've hung in for so long, but I guess now I have to ask if you are considering leaving.

It's hard to be 44 and not have health insurance. I've been here for 20 years and I've loved it, but Seattle has changed so completely -- growth is inevitable everywhere, but the growth of the arts and of funding has not been commensurate. I wouldn't be able to sustain the group here if I didn't get national funding; there's no way. I was talking with Mark Murphy [artistic director of On the Boards] about this level of opulence that we're all living in here. You have a lot of people who've been buried in their computers for a really long time, and then they get out and they have quite a bit of money -- not that they "owe" or whatever, but I think people take for granted a sort of cultural milieu, a certain level of cultural expertise or excellence in the arts -- and people are not willing to pay for it; they're still going to spend their money at Car Toys. There's something great about people being able to make a lot of money and open libraries, but I look at the younger artists in my field and there's nothing for them to look forward to. Seattle is my home and I feel very happy here, but I don't know if it's the place for me anymore as an artist. I wouldn't move completely away, but I'm going to have to make some tough decisions in the next two years. I guess I didn't think about the future very much, and all of a sudden I'm in it.

Last question. Do you have any tattoos yourself?

I have one. Of Alice in Wonderland. My patron saint.

Pat Graney's Tattoo plays Thurs Jan 13 through Sun Jan 16 at On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9888, $18/$20.