Patricia Lent was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1984 to 1993, dancing in over forty complete works, including Pictures, Fabrications, August Pace, and CRWDSPCR.  As a member of Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project (1994-1996) she performed work by Hanya Holm, Mark Morris, Tere O'Connor, and others.  After earning a master's degree from Bank Street College of Education, she taught second and third grade at P.S. 234 in Lower Manhattan (1998-2007).  In 2009, Lent was named a trustee of the Merce Cunningham Trust, and currently serves as the Trust's Co-Director, in which capacity she initiates and supervises staging projects for professional companies, museums, conservatories, schools, and arts organizations worldwide.

Lent began teaching technique and repertory workshops at the Merce Cunningham Studio in the late 1980s.  She has staged Cunningham's work for numerous schools and companies, including Fabrications for MCDC and Ballet de Lorraine, Scramble for Repertory Dance Theater, Duets for American Ballet Theatre, Channels/Inserts and Exchange for Lyon Opera Ballet, Beach Birds and Change of Address for North Carolina School of the Arts, and Roaratorio for MCDC's Legacy Tour.  Lent was the principal stager for Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event, presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2019 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Merce Cunningham's birth.  In the summer of 2023, she collaborated on an arrangement of Beach Birds performed on the shoreline of Rockaway Beach.  Lent has done extensive research into Cunningham's notes and choreographic methods, and welcomes opportunities to share her discoveries with dancers, dancemakers, artists, and other inquiring minds.