Evento

Hope Mohr Dance Second Home Season

"Like Zen calligraphy, Mohr's choreography exudes an easy spontaneity that belies the years of practice behind its craft." --San Francisco Examiner.

Choreographer Hope Mohr's passion for dance, social issues, especially environmental ones, and recent experience of new motherhood all come together with the debut of her new 40 minute work, The Force that Drives the Flower. The re-telling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone traces themes of loss and regeneration and features an original score by composer Paul Fowler, set by environmental designer Zakary Zide, and lighting design by David Szlasa.

Rounding out the program are The Grief Room (2008), a formal study of one woman's grieving process, and Elision (2008), a lush ensemble work tracing the somatic experience of traumatic memory and featuring music by Japanese composer Somei Satoh.

Featured performers: Ashley Burnett, Jennifer Chien, Joseph Copley, Cameron Growden, Emily Hite, Greta Schoenberg, Tegan Schwab, Michael Separovich, and Julie Sheetz.

The mission of Hope Mohr Dance (HMD) is to create rigorous, formal dances in a variety of contexts in order to connect emotionally with others through movement. HMD was formed in 2007 when Mohr returned to her native San Francisco to focus on her own work after many years of performing with a number of post-modern dance pioneers, including Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Douglas Dunn, and Margaret Jenkins. Mohrs training at S.F. Ballet School and on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown studios in New York infuses HMD with a unique combination of classicism and innovation. HMDs 2008 debut enjoyed capacity crowds and critical acclaim: "Like Zen calligraphy, Mohrs choreography exudes an easy spontaneity that belies the years of practice behind its craft," reported the S.F. Examiner, saying also that the dancing was "buttery" and the work "humanistic." A cover story in the Palo Alto Weekly called the dancing "entrancing to watch," with "special power," and "a moving expression of shared pain, shared hope, and the continuum of life."