Morgan Beckwith: Southport, CT

And as if all of my queries about the lack of organic movement in Goran’s teaching program had been answered, there walked in Gabrielle Lamb. A returning choreographer and artistic visionary for Mystic Ballet, Gabrielle Lamb’s  extensive career includes highly classical and contemporary work ranging from seasons with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses. She has clearly be searching for and has found her own extensive expressive voice through exhibiting her work at festivals and choreographing for companies like Mysitc Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet and Ballet X ( see her website for additional bibliographic information along with some of her other ventures including incredible short film clips).

After Goran and I discussed my further findings concerning the approach of training his dancers I walked into Gabrielle’s class. She used a combination of exercises and improvisational investigations to allow the dancers to explore their own body through certain slim ramifications. I couldn’t help but be beaming the entire rest of the class. This is exactly what I felt these newer dancers were craving, an intelligent yet explorative means with which to find organic movement in their bodies. Not only did she provide this charged environment but the way in which she connected the evolution of the ideas in her class was conducive to the way she taught her choreography later on. This process is also incredibly similar to the way that I see Goran work with his dancers, I can certainly see a uniformity in their approach however, I must note the difference in means of execution

I was so thrilled so see all of these artists move using the unique undulations of their bodies. Having lived through this venerable yet exhilarating process of inquiry I can say that it is so incredibly exciting to see ideas nurtured and taken hold in the physical movement of a human being. After two weeks I already feel extremely invested in the progress being made by each of these dancers and throughout the class I began seeing a true unfolding of potential and maturation taking place.   

One of Lamb’s exercises involved a progression of spinal movement, beginning by isolating three distinct types of spinal movement: front to back, side to side, and twisting. From there she challenged the dancers to play with the initiation of these movements, finally asking them to combine an improvisation of these options into a fluid exchange of spinal movement. I remember first figuring out how such a logical movement of the body can be such an expressive avenue of possibility for a dancer and it felt so nice to hear her articulating and physicalizing this crucial concept of the multiplicity of choices a dancer has the potential to make.

This is such an incredible opportunity to be able to witness these malleable and willing young dancers evolve this week in the company of this erudite individual. I cannot wait to see what the remainder of her time here brings.