Alicia Graf

Alicia Graf GS '03 is a modern dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She will serve as the 2008 General Studies Class Day speaker and receive the Medal of Excellence at the 2008 Commencement.

She earned high praise as a teenage ballerina and at age 17 joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem. When injuries and subsequent surgeries forced her off stage, Graf became the associate artistic director of A Time to Dance, Inc., overseeing a collegiate dance-ministry team that performed in local churches and other spiritual spaces. During that time she enrolled in Columbia, where she eventually graduated magna cum laude.

Now fully recovered from her injuries, Graf has returned to dancing and recently was named by Smithsonian magazine one of 37 young American innovators of the arts and sciences. The New York Times recently named her one of ten most influential dancers of the year.