It’s not uncommon for contemporary choreographers to declare that the meaning and significance behind their movement language is up to the audience’s imagination.

That’s not so with “Cultivate,” the Malashock Dance production staged downtown next weekend at the Saville Theatre.

Three of the choreographed dances created by artistic director Christopher K. Morgan were inspired by potent themes with a clear point of view.

“You Are Here/Usted Está Aquí,” for instance, is a modular work that combines contemporary dance with the oral histories from San Diego residents.

“Over time, we will accumulate many stories and many solos to each story,” Morgan explained. “We might perform many of the solos at once and other times, we could perform small suites of them.”

“You Are Here/Usted Está Aquí” was introduced at the ENVZN arts festival earlier this year and it drew a riveted crowd that watched intently, as the company soloists brought the recorded stories of San Diegans to life with expressive dance.

They heard of the single mother who survived living in a poverty-stricken neighborhood that was also “warm and welcoming.”

In another dance, a man spoke of the ways his life was enriched by San Diego’s art scene and its architecture.

The last solo was performed by Morgan.

Dressed in a black sleeveless shirt and black pants, he entered the outdoor stage carrying a net made of thick, white rope and moved with a combination of muscled aggression and liquid grace.

The prop, Morgan said, was made with traditional Hawaiian rope-tying techniques in a shape that could symbolize a cloak or a fishing net.

The narrative began with the statement, “In 1953, my dad left his fishing village and enlisted in the Marines.”

As the story unfolded, Morgan’s movement language suggested both tenderness and rage as he slammed the net to the ground, spun until the net enveloped him and when he twirled it over his head, it appeared as if he had wings.

“That section is my own personal story,” said Morgan, who is of Native Hawaiian ancestry.

“I was thinking about how our identities sometimes become a cloak that traps you and becomes a wrapping around you. But also, it is this thing that can expand and take flight.”

Malashock Dance company members Lauren Christie, left, Nick McGhee and Chelsea Zeffiro will perform in the dance program Cultivate at San Diego City College Nov. 1-3. (Doug McMinimy)

In the process of collecting oral histories from different San Diego residents, Morgan remembered the challenges of his childhood and found it interesting that he now lives three blocks from the hospital where his father got a physical before he went on to basic training.

“I’m gay and I’ve been with my husband for 19 years — we’ve been married for 11 of those years,” he said.

“My dad just passed in April. For the first many years of being queer, my dad did not accept it, did not talk about it. He also did not meet my husband until 2017. But over time, they got along incredibly well. It took him a long time to accept me and my family, but I feel very fortunate that before he passed, he did.”

Another work on the program is “Companions,” a San Diego Museum of Art commissioned piece that required Morgan and founding director John Malashock to create a dance interpretation of Armenian-American Arshile Gorky’s painting “Child’s Companions.”

John Malashock, founding director of San Diegos Malashock Dance.

The choreographers responded differently to the abstract work.

Malashock was inspired by Armenian music made during the time of the painting and Morgan utilized the talents of a filmmaker, who documented the recent civil unrest in Armenia. Some of her images provide a backdrop for movement that shifts from lighthearted child’s play to “something more intense and foreboding.”

Additionally, the program includes the SEED Suite, a selection of commissioned dances by local choreographers, and the premiere of Morgan’s “The Dulling Effect,” a dance inspired by a 1930s Harvard study that suggested that radio could dull the senses.

Morgan brought up the fact that just over three decades ago, there were some 50 American media companies and now, most of the media in the United States is controlled by six corporations.

The result of less news sources, he said, can contribute to narrowing perspectives and limited vision.

“As we find ourselves increasingly in our own echo chambers of ideas and opinions, it concerns me that that there is a kind of homogeneity that might be happening,” Morgan said.

“The news that I get through my social media platforms feels like what I’m already connected to and I have to work to get out of my bubble. That, to me, is parallel to what I think is happening legislatively in our country. Fearfulness around different identities is creating laws that limit our freedoms.”

His dance illustrates those concepts.

At a rehearsal for The Dulling Effect earlier this month, he instructed three dancers to create a line connected with outstretched arms while one dancer slid around and through the spaces between the bodies, testing the strength of the formation.

“The line keeps forming and reforming to establish a sense of conformity and homogeneity,” Morgan explained.

“Dancers in subsequent sections will try and find ways to escape the line to express their own unique individuality.”

The message Morgan wants to deliver in “The Dulling Effect” is that our differences are essential to survival.

“Without diversity within our own human race, I’m concerned that we are becoming weak and disconnected,’ Morgan stressed.

“To me, when you look at nature, diversity is strength. Diverse systems support one another and have ways of regenerating life and sustainability.”

Malashock Dance presents ‘Cultivate’

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Nov. 3

Where: Saville Theatre, San Diego City College, 1313 Park Blvd., San Diego

Tickets: $40-$50, general; $30, students; $10, ages 12 and under

Online: malashockdance.org

The Nov. 3 show is a “relaxed performance,” offering a supportive environment for those with neurodiverse needs