Hope Mohr

Hosted by BOXBLUR at Catharine Clark Gallery, care/stamina is a performance installation and a slow-moving sculpture in which two dancers share weight, touch, vulnerability, and stillness. Directed by Hope Mohr in collaboration with dancers Karla Quintero and Melissa Lewis Wong and sound artist Zachary James Watkins, care/stamina is performed within the exhibition of work by Arleene Correa Valencia titled Codice del Perdedor/The Losing Man’s Codex at the Catharine Clark Gallery.

In the words of artist Arleene Correa Valencia:

"I love the idea of having to work together to hold each other. My work is very much about the balance between visibility and invisibility. I think a lot about ways in which we carry each other even when the other isn’t visible or present. The bodies fight to exist together and apart. "

In the words of choreographer Hope Mohr:

"This work offers an embodied expression of care as a stamina practice. This can look like a sustained difficult hold, a walk holding hands, or humming into someone's ear. There are so many different ways to touch another person. Touch can be a form of sanctuary. Inside this sanctuary, so much is possible."

Image: Karla Quintero and Melissa Lewis Wong in care/stamina.

A co-creation with dancers Rosemary Hannon and Belinda He, Partial View is a long-form contact improvisation duet exploring the somatics and performance of partnering.

Partial View invites the audience into co-directing the score alongside the performers to explore the following questions through movement:

What does it mean to direct time?

How do different qualities of touch influence weight sharing?

As a performer, how do you invite an audience into emotional landscape?

What does “theater” mean in the context of contact improvisation?

How do you perform an ongoing process?

Partial View was presented by Bridge Live Arts March 22-24, 2024, as part of Experiments in Motion at Space 124 in San Francisco, in collaboration with choreographer Cherie Hill and Rebecca Fitton.

Creation of Partial View was made possible by residencies at Montalvo Arts Center, Space 124, and Zaccho Dance Theater.

float the mark (2023)

A long form improvised duet in response with Ranu Mukherjee’s dance floor drawing, this is a map of a mine in a forest/this is a drawing/this is a dance floor/this is a question/this is an invitation (2023), Karin pigment markers on marley 20 x 21 feet (detail), part of an exhibit at the Mills Arts Museum. Featuring Jay Carlon and Johnny Nguyen (pictured on Mukherjee’s floor).

Press review of exhibit and performance at Mills Art Museum.

A dance theater project co-directed by Maxe Crandall (playwright) and Hope Mohr (choreographer) inspired by the tragedies of gender reveal parties and Anne Carson's Bakkhai.

Since 2017, this cross-disciplinary collaboration between Hope and painter Ranu Mukherjee has included gallery activations, embodied storytelling workshops for immigrant and refugee artists, and museum performances.

inspired by Alice Notley’s feminist epic, “The Descent of Alette”

Dancer Collaborators: Belinda He, Suzette Sagisi, Tegan Schwab-Alavi

Choreography: Hope Mohr
Text: Alice Notley, from The Descent of Alette
Sound Design: Teddy Hulsker & Hope Mohr
Lighting Design: Del Medoff
Masks: Ella Noe
Costumes: Tegan Schwab-Alavi

Excerpts from The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley copyright 1992 by Alice Notley. Used by permission of Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

The premiere of Horizon Stanzas was made possible through the support of the Zaccho Dance Theatre's Artist in Residency program, Bridge Live Arts, and generous individual donors.

JEN NORRIS REVIEW

INTERVIEW with Rachel Zucker on Commonplace Podcast

Inspired by Ben Lerner’s acclaimed novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, this new work of experimental dance theater premiered in the Bay Area January 24-27, 2019 at Southern Exposure and in L.A. at Highways Performance Space February 1 & 2.