Pictured above (L to R): dancers Jane Selna, Tara McArthur, Suzette Sagisi, and Karla Quintero in Hope Mohr’s extreme lyric I .
Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
On “Horizon Stanzas”
“Creates an epic feminist battle….Mohr’s dances are captivating and intellectually rigorous….How fortunate we are to have this artist in our midst.” — Jen Norris, Review of Horizon Stanzas
Interview with poet Rachel Zucker about making dance inspired by Alice Notley, on Zucker’s podcast Commonplace
On “extreme lyric I”
“Gorgeously embodied“ -James Fleming, “Sappho’s body is leaking: Sacred Enclosures of Queer Desire,” Art Practical, November 13, 2018
"This sophisticated installation and contemporary aesthetic was museum quality, all elements smartly placed; a seductive mystery that instantly beckoned viewers into the unknown."
-- David E. Moreno, "extreme lyric I," Culture Vulture, October 7, 2018
"ONSTAGE News: Nasty Women, works inspired by radical, revered writings from female authors"
-- Dance Magazine, October 2018
“The choreography demands attention as dancers create stances of ecstasy, desire, gratitude and exaltation…As always in Mohr’s pieces, there is at times a sense of improvisation, fluidity, and ephemerality….The entire performance peaks in a sublime surreality.”
— Dasha Bulatova, "Sappho’s body is breaking in “extreme lyric I”," Piedmont Post, October 10th, 2018
Open Air Interview with Hope Mohr on extreme lyric I.
-- David Latulippe, “Open Air,” October 3rd, 2018
Interview with Hope Mohr and ODC Writer in Residence, Marie Tollon.
-- Marie Tollon, “Investigating the Lyric I: An Interview with Hope Mohr” ODC.dance.stories, September 28th, 2018
General Press
Suzannah Friscia, “Repeating History - Is the Dance World Too Precious with its Classic Works?,” Dance Magazine January 2020
Feature by George McCalman, “Observed: A banner month for art, dance and ideas,” SF Chronicle, February 15, 2019
"Choreographer Hope Mohr brings a cerebral slant to dance’s visceral vocabulary." --S.F. Chronicle
Press about Precarious (2017)
"Mohr manages to convey emotional and socio-political contents that just ride underneath the surface of a rigorous vocabulary"
-- Rita Felciano, "Pliable Iron", DanceViewTimes, June 1, 2017
"This year, Hope Mohr Dance marks a huge milestone; a decade of creative collaboration and boundary-pushing art making. "Precarious" - a world premiere co-production with CounterPulse - is a full-length multi-discipline work that uses movement, music, video, visuals and sounds to explore the issue of gentrification and of the live/work space crisis in San Francisco."
-- Heather Desaulniers, "Precarious," SF/Arts, June 2017
Editorial Feature of HMD's Precarious
-- Heather Desaulniers, "Hope Mohr Dance Examines a Changing Landscape," SF/Arts, June 2017
Hoodline Feature of HMD's Precarious
-- Carrie Sisto, 'Precarious;' Hope Mohr Dance Explores Role of Labor In Changing City," Hoodline, May 26th, 2017
Preview of HMD's Precarious in Dance Magazine
-- Courtney Escoyne, "NorCal Takeover," Dance Magazine, May 24th, 2017
Feature of HMD's Precarious
-- Jeffery Freymann, "Dance Inspired by a Blacksmiths Forge," KDFC, May 22nd, 2017
"insistently inventive"
--East Bay Times
Press about Manifesting (2016)
"Blessed be the rare postmodern choreographer possessed of a sense of humor"
-- Allan Ulrich, "Hope Mohr takes company to new heights in Manifesting," SF Chronicle, June 11th, 2016
"An evening of brilliant theatrical extremes"
-- Heather Desaulniers, "Hope Mohr Dance," Dance Commentary, June 12th, 2016
"An exquisite blend of intellectual and emotional response to environment, Mohr's creations initially appear extremely philosophical. But there is a soft underbelly, a sensitivity to human frailty that is consistently honored throughout, with a wicked sense of humor to boot. Mohr is an artists' artist"
--Leigh Donlan, "Hope Mohr Dance, Manifesting," Ballet to the People, June 12th, 2016
"Virtuosic dancers manifest the visceral style that Mohr has employed in the spectacle of Manifesting"
-- Claudia Bauer, "Hope Mohr Dance - Manifesting (premiere)," Dance Tabs, June 11th, 2016
Interview with Hope Mohr and ODC Writer in Residence, Marie Tollon.
--Marie Tollon, “When Rules Lead to Process: A Conversation with Hope Mohr,” Triple Dog Dare, June 09, 2016
Live Interview with Hope Mohr and composer Beth Wilmurt on Manifesting.
-- David Latulippe, “Open Air,” June 7, 2016
"Arresting images with...crackerjack dancers"
-- Carla Escoda, "Pirouettes in the Sun: Summer Dance Performances You Can't Miss," KQED, June 1, 2016
"A rigorous conceptual approach to fundamental questions about the body in space and time...beautifully layered work with some of the Bay Area's individually strongest dancers”
--Rita Felciano, "Two Ways of Shaping," Dance View Times, May 28, 2015
"YBCA 100: Gathering the Very Best and Brightest from American Culture," Laura Jaye Kramer, S.F. Weekly, October 7, 2015 (naming Mohr among the artists that ask "the questions that will result in great movement forward")
Older Press
“[Mohr's Stay] hangs together as a seamless and elegant whole”
--Elizabeth Costello, "Hope Mohr Dance well worth seeing - anytime," Piedmont Post, June 3, 2015
Live Interview with Hope Mohr and collaborator Christian Burns on The Material of Attention.
-- David Latulippe, “Open Air,” May 28, 2015 (begin listening at minute 14.30)
“A mix of spontaneity, care, rigor and being present in the moment”
-- Heather Desaulniers, "The Diversity of Authorship: In Conversation with Hope Mohr," In Dance, May 1, 2015
“a spellbinding piece of dance theater…wildly creative”
-- Sam Hurwitt, "Shotgun Players’ Stylized ‘Antigonick’ Makes a Triumph of Tragedy," KQED, April 2, 2015
"Carefully detailed direction by Mark Jackson and choreographer Hope Mohr physicalize the story in equally compelling, wonderfully theatrical ways."
-- Jean Schiffman, "Shotgun Players stage slick ‘Antigonick,’ " S.F. Examiner, April 1, 2015
“an intensely felt, richly inventive and resonant show”
-- Robert Hurwitt, "In 'Antigonick,' ancient tragedy explodes in modern forms," SF Gate, March 27, 2015
"tense, minimal strokes that erupt into a grand ferocity…stunningly raw"
-- Irene Hsiao, “Astounding Antigonick at Berkeley's Shotgun Players,” SF Weekly, March 25, 2015
"Mohr’s own brilliantly conceived and excellently realized s(oft is)hard is grounded in the inevitability of time passing. Ben Juodvalkis’ click sound track complemented a recitation of dates inspired by Mohr’s journal writing. In these non-chronological sequences from the 1940’a to the future, time bunched up, curled in on itself and stretched from before Mohr’s birth to beyond the present.The choreography is intense, full of unexpected trajectories, increasing in complexity with phrases both telling and abstruse. It started with a young Kao looking at herself; it ended with her on her back and the sound of bells tolling."
-- Rita Felciano, Dance View Times, Vol. 31, No.4, Autumn 2014
“Where are the women leaders? Try California.”
-- Wendy Perron, "Women Leaders in Dance," wendyperron.com, August 2014 (naming Mohr)
“[T]ransparent [dances] because of the clarity and intensity that these fabulous dancers brought to their tasks. Their presence burnt itself into your retina and your soul…..It’s rare that dancers become truly expert at delivering words and movement; Mohr’s troupe was first-rate in both.”
-- Rita Felciano, “Think Again: Three Provocative Premieres,” S.F. Bay Guardian, April 16, 2014
“Mohr continues to subtract the layers of inherited models in order to articulate her artistic voice. In her many roles as a writer, performer and choreographer, she questions the process of art making and the essence of an artwork with a rigorous dedication to the choreographic craft. Her dances offer spare but meticulous compositions where both body and space become a laboratory for research and inquiry about what it means to make art and how it relates to our lives.”
-- Marie Tollon, “Dance as a Vehicle for Questioning,” tripledogdare, April 3, 2014
“Highly experimental and consistently refreshing.”
--Laura Jaye Cramer, S.F. Weekly, November 20, 2013
“In plenty of dance theater, it’s common for performers to move and speak. It’s hard to do well and it’s a complicated relationship. I’m interested in the nuance of it, the details of it, what makes it work or not work. There’s a moment of individuation that happens when we learn to speak. It’s a pivotal moment in the development of us all.”
-- Mohr, interviewed by Wallace Baine, in “San Francisco Dance Troupe Explores Language and Movement,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept. 25, 2013
“Mohr… is cool, cerebral, and theory-driven. Her recent Failure of the Sign is the Sign was meticulously constructed…”
-- Irene Hsiao, “Let’s Put on a Show,” S.F. Weekly, August 14, 2013
Live Interview with Hope Mohr and collaborator jazz composer Henry Hung on their Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction.
-- David Latulippe, “Open Air,” April 3rd, 2014 (begin listening at minute 25)
“I’ve always been interested in brain and body in conversation or in antagonism. I’m a dancer, but I’m also a writer…For this piece, I wanted to focus on the moment when we learn to speak…and investigate that experience of funneling sensation into speech as an archetypal transition into selfhood.”
-- Mohr, interviewed by Mary Ellen Hunt, "Failure of the Sign," S.F. Chronicle, May 2, 2013
“The set design by Katrina Rodabaugh is extraordinary: Strung from the ceiling are jagged branches hung with exposed incandescent light bulbs, soft sculptures in soft blue in the shapes of a castle on a planet, trees sprouting from a whale, and organs, soft organs: lungs, heart, pancreas. Tegan Schwab, swaddled in long blue tubes, rolls fetally, larvally, the tips of her fingers and toes making light contact with the bare wood floor…The six dancers proceed with the hunger and animal investigation of children, test gravity with repeated jumps, wrap themselves in the soft blue shapes, try out their voices with monosyllables, then repeatedly group themselves into tense sculptures that strain the limits of the arms and legs to hold…Schwab explodes through an astonishing solo that mimics the way sounds deform space…”
-- Irene Hsiao, “Theory and Practice,” S.F. Weekly, May 7, 2013
“[In Failure of the Sign is the Sign], pleasure and rigor is also expressed in the product: The soft blue sculpture intertwined with performer Tegan Schwab’s limbs. Pleasure.The calculated structures of bodies tethered and released in balanced support. Rigor.”
-- Julie Potter, “Rigor of the Mind and Body,” Triple Dog Dare, April 17, 2013
“We all benefit from having a more expressive relationship with our own bodies,” [Mohr] says. “Instead of just using the body as a tool, let the body express itself. It’s a leap of faith for veterans or anyone who doesn’t think of themselves as a dancer to allow themselves to walk through that door. There are so many preconceptions about how dancers have to be professional or look a certain way. Dance should be available to anyone because it’s such a powerful resource and such an important part of who we are.”
-- Chad Jones, “Veterans purging the pain of war through acting,” San Francisco Chronicle, July25, 2013
“very smart choreography”
-- Rita Felciano, “Spring into Arts,” S.F. Bay Guardian, March 20, 2013
“I had seen the premiere of the full-length Reluctant Light at Z Space back in March, and it was fascinating to see Hope Mohr Dance again in this work, this time in an excerpt. Doing an excerpt of an entire piece is not easy at all; you must capture the essence and message of the work without the full choreographic material. Hope Mohr Dance did this very well. I still saw the juxtaposition of encasement and freedom, yet, there were also new discoveries, including a more layered exploration of ‘assumption’. I felt like there was a set of different questions being asked: what does a structure or boundary suggest; how does it temper behavior; how does its assumed role challenge or hinder interactions; what happens when we re-purpose an entity; how do we try and control our surroundings? ”
-- Heather Desaulnier, heatherdance.com, July 5, 2012
“Hope Mohr [is] exquisite, focused and powerful … a mesmerizing performer.”
-- Rita Felciano, “Weekly Picks,” S.F. Bay Guardian, March 21, 2012
“athletic daring and playful exploration of line and form continue throughout the beautifully constructed work….Mohr expertly contrasts common pedestrian movement and gestures against precise and formal choreography so that neither form overtakes the other. The dancers communicate with each other and with the audience in ways that look and feel spontaneous, never contrived….her choreography is always detailed and intentional. As a performer, [Mohr] embodies the presence of someone who is unafraid to confront stillness and silence but instead opens herself to the possibilities she finds in her boundless imagination.”
-- Catherine Conway Honig, Scene 4 Magazine, April 2012
“….intriguing visual elements and dynamic modern dance vocabulary….thoughtful and formidably performed.”
-- Mariko Nagashima, Seattle Dances, April 3, 2012
“[R]igorously crafted works….an unusually satisfying evening of mostly pure dance…. Most satisfying was to see how carefully [Mohr's Far From Perfect] … opened the complex subject about the nature, and process, of making art into a contemplation of the pain human beings inflict on each other…. The first part, with its shifting relationships in which dancers constantly reconfigure space, was pure dance — economical, linear, fluid….”
-- Rita Felciano, “Creativity Continuum,” S.F. Bay Guardian, March 10, 2010
“Reluctant Light is a highly textured work, a layering of ideas; in both its narrative content and its structural form… Mohr’s choreographic style also speaks to unexpected combinations…. In Plainsong [t]he movement style was equally compelling. It had a strength of attack and a delightful edge, almost as if Mohr had perched the choreography precariously on a fence.”
-- Heather Desaulniers, heatherdance.com, March 24, 2012
“Mohr’s world premiere, the deep-ringing Plainsong, was a fragile mediation ….Every meaning, every gesture … was suspended in ambiguity… one of Hope’s finest works yet….”
-- Rita Felciano, “Earthly creations, unearthly longings,” S.F. Bay Guardian, May 25, 2011
“…the performers [in The Unsayable] speak, shift formation, and splinter into dance, bravely sharing personal anecdotes, including the ugly, the tender, and the uncomfortable.”
-- Julie Potter, “What Can’t Be Said,” S.F. Bay Guardian, March 2, 2011
“[P]art of the importance of [The Unsayable] is to demonstrate one of the roles of the artist: To bear witness to suffering.”
-- Jean Schiffman, “Dancing the Unsayable,” S.F. Arts Monthly, March 2011
“As they intentionally move off balance, break through lines, and break away from preconceived notions of “perfect” movement, the dancers [in Far From Perfect] articulate Mohr’s … highly expressive choreography with fluidity and grace….Hope draws upon postmodern, modern and even classical movement to create a unique and exquisite aesthetic.”
-- Katie Gaydos, “HMD Questions The Boundaries of Dance,” Daily Californian, Mar. 11, 2010
“The dance has been forged out of the fire of pain, fear and loss, and while entrancing to watch, it is not primarily entertainment….The collaboration between generations gives Under the Skin its special power, as young dancers seem to gather the raw experience from the older women, creating a moving expression of shared pain, shared hope and the continuum of life.”
-- Diana Reynolds Roome, “The Body from the Inside Out,” Palo Alto Weekly Feature Story, March 8, 2008
“Mohr’s desire to connect emotionally with others through movement comes across securely in her multiform work.”
-- Emily Hite, “Craft in Context,” In Dance, February 2010
“ A little voice told the law student she should be dancing”
Profile of Hope Mohr in the Stanford Alumni Magazine.