Legacy and Leadership in Dance: Shaping the Future Through Movement

Bridge Live Arts presents a panel and lunch discussion that delves into the impact of influential dance leaders and their legacies. This event gathers pioneering choreographers and respected educators Gabriele Christian, Sarah Crowell, Hope Mohr, Robert Moses, and Nancy Ng, artists who have helped shape the landscape of dance in the Bay Area through their visionary work and leadership.

Panelists will share their unique perspectives on how they have navigated and transformed their organizations while addressing the challenges and triumphs of fostering artistic communities and nurturing future generations. They will discuss how we evolve and preserve legacy in a constantly shifting environment while contributing to dance and community-building.

Whether you’re a dancer, choreographer, educator, artist, activist, or community member, this panel will offer valuable perspectives on the intersection of leadership, legacy, and dance.

Schedule

12:00 – 1:00 PM Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 PM Panel Discussion

2:30 – 3:00 PM Q/A

Tickets

$20 sliding scale. Lunch provided with ticket purchase.

NOTAFLOF available, please contact admin@bridgelivearts.org for more information.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Gabriele Christian (b. 1991) is a San Francisco-based conceptual artist and descendent of stolen folk experimenting within somatic practices, language, performance composition, video production and community arts facilitation to locate and center BlaQ (Black and Queer) experience, vernaculars and aesthetics as wellsprings for urgent futurity. They are a founding member of Bay Area performance collectives and land projects: RUPTURE; OYSTERKNIFE; and BlaQyard and current Executive and Co-Artistic Director of Jess Curtis/Gravity.

Sarah Crowell is a dancer/choreographer who has taught dance, theater, mindfulness and arts integration for over 35 years. For 30 years, she was a leader at Destiny Arts Center, a youth arts education organization whose mission is to inspire and ignite social change through the arts.

Sarah now consults with arts and social justice organizations as a curator, speaker, performer, facilitator and collaborator, adding movement to movements for justice.

Hope Mohr (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and attorney. After a professional dance career with Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs, she founded the nonprofit Hope Mohr Dance and its signature presenting program, The Bridge Project, which for over 15 years supported over 100 artists through commissions, residencies, workshops, and collaborative performance projects. From 2020-2023, Mohr co-stewarded the organization’s transition to an equity-driven model of distributed leadership and a new name: Bridge Live Arts. She is now an attorney and a Fellow with the Sustainable Economies Law Center with a practice focused on supporting artists and arts organizations. Her book about cultural work as activism, “Shifting Cultural Power: Case Studies and Questions in Performance,” was published in 2020 by the National Center for Choreography. She is currently a Lucas Artist in Residence at Montalvo Arts Center. hopemohr.org

Choreographer, Writer and Composer Robert Moses has created numerous works of varying styles and genres for his highly praised dance company, as well as composing many of the sound and narrative scores for those works since 2008. Moses has choreographed for dance, opera, and theater companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, San Francisco Opera, and Lorraine Hansberry Theater. He has taught at festivals and on college campuses throughout the US and internationally, including OPEN LOOK St. Petersburg International Dance Festival, Serendipity Arts Festival (Kolkata, India), Bates Dance Festival, UC Berkeley, and Stanford University, where he served as Dance Lecturer and Choreographer-in-Residence from 1995 to 2016.

Nancy Ng is the Co-Executive Director of Luna Dance & Creativity, based in Berkeley, California. She is a past president of the California Dance Education Association, facilitator of the National Dance Education Organization ‘s early education special interest group, and a board trustee and racial equity committee chair with the National Guild for Community Arts Education.