Imagining the Future: A story-building workshop by ARTogether and Hope Mohr Dance. Learn about our work, and watch our artists come together for a day of exp...

"Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100" was a bicoastal collaboration with the Merce Cunningham Trust, ODC Theater and SFMOMA’s Open Space as part of the international celebration of the Cunningham centennial. "Signals from the West" commissioned ten Bay Area artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to participate in a residency August 12-23, 2019 with former Cunningham dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener and create new works of art in response to this experience. These commissioned works will premiere, alongside excerpts of Cunningham repertory performed by Bay Area dancers selected through a workshop with Mitchell and Riener, at ODC Theater November 8 & 9, 2019. SFMOMA’s Open Space commissioned an online series in conjunction with the program. To foreground difference, the project’s co-curators commissioned artists who represent a diversity of disciplines, perspectives, and ways of working and intentionally did not select anyone who has ever worked directly with the Cunningham company. The ten Bay Area commissioned artists were: Sofia Cordova Maxe Crandall Alex Escalante Christy Funsch Julie Moon Jenny Odell Nicole Peisl Danishta Rivero Dazaun Soleyn Sophia Wang Press "Signals from the West “encourages a critical, probing engagement with Cunningham, one befitting the artist’s own restless disposition" —Sam Lefebvre, “Merce Cunningham Artist Residency Celebrates, Challenges Dance Luminary,” KQED Arts "The initiative promises not only premieres, but also searching conversation as to what dance — this most ephemeral and physically vulnerable of arts — has to offer as its connecting essence during disconnected times…. a fresh encounter with Cunningham’s legacy" —S.F. Chronicle FUNDING CREDITS Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce at 100 is a program of HMD’s Bridge Project and is made possible by the Merce Cunningham Trust, ODC Theater, SFMOMA’s Open Space, National Endowment for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts, the Walter & Elise Haas Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and generous individual donors. The Merce Cunningham Centennial Community Program is supported by a generous grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Merce Cunningham Centennial and its programs are generously supported with major funding from the Merce Cunningham Trust, the Paul L. Wattis Foundation, the American Express Foundation and Judith Pisar.

Sept 26, 2019 Women's Building - San Francisco

2016 Bridge Project: Ten Artists Respond to Locus, was a groundbreaking, multidisciplinary exchange with dance history inspired by the work of dance pioneer Trisha Brown. In partnership with local curators, HMD commissioned a diverse group of ten outstanding artists to learn Brown’s iconic dance Locus and create new works in response. HMD presented the ten premieres, along with a performance of Locus Solo in the YBCA Forum Friday October 14 & Saturday, October 15, 2016. www.hopemohr.org/curating

2016 Bridge Project: Ten Artists Respond to Locus, was a groundbreaking, multidisciplinary exchange with dance history inspired by the work of dance pioneer Trisha Brown. In partnership with local curators, HMD commissioned a diverse group of ten outstanding artists to learn Brown’s iconic dance Locus and create new works in response. HMD presented the ten premieres, along with a performance by local dancers of Locus itself, in the YBCA Forum Friday October 14 & Saturday, October 15, 2016. Ten Artists Respond to Locus was made possible in part through support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Sakana Foundation. www.hopemohr.org/curating video by: Loren Robertson Productions - www.lorenrobertson.com

video by Loren Robertson Productions - www.lorenrobertson.com

“[A] phenomenal celebration of West Coast post-modern dance, bringing together four powerhouse choreographers in a single program.” -- Dance critic Heather Desaulniers For the fifth anniversary of its Bridge Project, Hope Mohr Dance, in association with the Joe Goode Annex, presented "Have We Come A Long Way, Baby?," a program dedicated to the West Coast post-modern dance lineage. Anna Halprin, the matriarch of post-modernism, performed The Courtesan and the Crone (1999), an acclaimed solo addressing the aging body in motion. Simone Forti, who studied with Halprin before joining the Judson Dance Theater in New York, performed News Animations, an improvisational performance in which personal experiences interweave with the flickering, fluid visions of the world brought to us by the news media to create a bold mosaic of our shared concerns. Mohr, who performed in the companies of three members of the Judson Dance Theater (Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, and Douglas Dunn), performed Carnation, Lucinda Childs’ seminal 1964 solo examining the performance of gender through the use of simplicity, stillness, humor and task. Finally, Mohr presented s(oft is)hard, a new solo for Peiling Kao. In addition to performances, programming included a workshop with Simone Forti and panel discussions on artistic lineage and curatorial thinking.