Artist Bio

Hope Mohr Dance

Plainsong (World Premiere)
Presented by Hope Mohr Dance

Hope Mohr, known for her emotionally powerful and exquisitely crafted dances, will present a new solo work titled Plainsong, with design by Katarina Rodabaugh. Plainsong is inspired by the figure of Penelope in The Odyssey. This poetic dance combines classical and contemporary tropes of weaving, waiting and female inner life. Developed in residence at the Montalvo Arts Center, Plainsong features original text by Mohr and a set design of red thread and photographic images by Katrina Rodabaugh.

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Hope Mohr
Choreographer

Mohr established Hope Mohr Dance in her native San Francisco after a long performance career with many pioneers of modern dance, including Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Douglas Dunn, and Margaret Jenkins. She trained at San Francisco Ballet School and on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown studios. Since 1994, Mohr has presented her choreography on both coasts—in New York City at Judson Church, the Merce Cunningham Studio, the Construction Company, and The Stable—and in the Bay Area at West Wave Festival, ODC Pilot Series, The Garage, American College Dance Festival, Mission Creek Festival, Dance Mission Theater, and Theater Artaud. She has been commissioned to choreograph works for the Montalvo Arts Center and her alma mater Stanford University. In 2005, she assisted Lucinda Childs in Dr. Atomic, a premiere for San Francisco Opera. In 2006, Hope was the first artist-in-residence with the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance in New York City, where she collaborated with sound artist Michelle Nagai to develop The Language of the Listening Body, a performance project that investigates listening and moving in the environment. Her article about her Listening Body work was published in Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory. She was a 2009 grantee in the Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange Program with mentor Molissa Fenley. She is a 2010 Irvine Fellow at the Montalvo Center for the Arts.

HMD was founded in 2007 to foster, create and perform rigorously crafted, emotionally powerful live performances. The company’s philosophy revolves around integrity, possibility, and excellence. In addition to a regular home season and festival performances throughout the year, HMD supports Mohr’s teaching of dance technique to professionals and creative movement to diverse populations, including cancer patients and veterans. The S.F. Examiner has described Mohr’s work as "like Zen calligraphy" and "humanistic." The S.F. Bay Guardian called the company’s 2010 home season "rigorously crafted" and "unusually satisfying." In this era of collaboration, Mohr continues to believe in the value of a distinctive movement vocabulary developed from her own body. In a style that is fluid, linear and economical, Mohr’s movement blends pedestrian, modern and classical forms to create "a unique and exquisite aesthetic" (Daily Californian). Her dances abstract issue-driven content down to its essential truths and usually feature text, reflecting a lifelong passion for language.