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Affiliate Artist

A 2023 commission and collaboration with former B.L.A. Co-Director Hope Mohr. Hope will converse with B.L.A. co-directors on strategies to support choreographers equitably and brainstorm ways B.L.A. can build and sustain a program for choreography and performance.

Artist Statement

My primary tool in making dance is deconstruction.

I break down movement to get at strangeness and to excavate a voice closer to the bone. I break down movement to push against the traditions of white formalism that have shaped me. I break down movement to create a space where freedom can arise. 

 

Poetry can unmake the self that culture has made.  Poetry can create space for a self that does not yet exist. When I speak of poetry, I speak of dance. Making a dance feels like doing a million close readings of the body.

 

I am an activist formalist. This means that I value thinking about subject matter through form. Also that doubt corrodes my forms. I make art to stir up ambivalence, to imagine values other than those of the dominant culture, and to fall into places that scare me.

Headshot of Hope Mohr

Hope Mohr

she/her

Hope Mohr (Affiliate Artist) has woven art and activism for decades. In 2007, she founded Hope Mohr Dance. In 2010, she founded HMD's core program, The Bridge Project. In 2020, she co-stewarded the organization's transition to an equity-driven model of distributed leadership. As a dancer, Mohr trained at S.F. Ballet School and on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown Studios in New York City. She performed in the companies of dance pioneers Lucinda Childs and Trisha Brown, among others. As a choreographer, Mohr makes work that “conveys emotional and socio-political contents that just ride underneath the surface of a rigorous vocabulary.” (Dance View Times) She was named to the YBCA 100 in 2015. In 2014, Dance Magazine editor-in-chief Wendy Perron named Mohr as one of the “women leaders” in dance. Her book, Shifting Cultural Power, is out now from the National Center for Choreography.

Passionate about pursuing both activism and dance, Mohr earned a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She works as a lawyer at the intersection of the arts and the solidarity economy as a Fellow with the Sustainable Economies Law Center.

Current Projects

Collaboration with visual artist Ranu Mukherjee

Workshops with immigrant and refugee artists are a core part of this project, in partnership with ARTogether (Oakland) and 18th Street Art Center  (LA). Development in residency Winter 2022 with support from 836M Gallery

Nancy (The Poetry Project, NYC)

Collaboration with playwright/poet Maxe Crandall

Affiliate Artist
Upcoming Events

  • Horizon Stanzas
    Horizon Stanzas
    Thu, Apr 27
    Joe Goode Annex
    Apr 27, 8:00 PM – Apr 30, 8:00 PM
    Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA
    Apr 27, 8:00 PM – Apr 30, 8:00 PM
    Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA
    A new dance theater by B.L.A Affiliate Artist Hope Mohr, inspired by Alice Notley's feminist epic poem, The Descent of Alette, featuring Tegan Schwab-Alavi, Suzette Sagisi, and Belinda He.
  • Bacchae Before
    Bacchae Before
    Thu, Mar 30
    John Hopkins University
    Mar 30, 8:00 PM – Mar 31, 8:00 PM
    John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
    Mar 30, 8:00 PM – Mar 31, 8:00 PM
    John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
    A collaboration with Maxe Crandall, Mike Chin, and B.L.A Affiliate Artist Hope Mohr inspired by the tragedies of gender reveal parties and Anne Carson's Bakkhai.
  • Ensemble for Nonlinear Time
    Ensemble for Nonlinear Time
    Sat, Feb 18
    FREIZE LA
    Feb 18, 7:00 PM PST
    FREIZE LA, 18th Street Art Center, Los Angeles
    Feb 18, 7:00 PM PST
    FREIZE LA, 18th Street Art Center, Los Angeles
    B.L.A. Affiliate Artist Hope Mohr and visual artist Ranu Mukherjee will present Ensemble for Nonlinear Time at FRIEZE LA, in partnership with 18th Street Art Center and Gallery Wendi Norris.
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