Morgan Beckwith: Southport, CT

Where does Goran want his dancers to find organic movement?

As my second week at Mystic Ballet came to a close the initial grace period of observance had passed and Goran and I begun to engage in active discussion about the ways in which he carries out the fundamental philosophy of his company.

I had witnessed him promote the use of organic and expressive movement throughout the two weeks of meetings and rehearsals, but I am beginning to wonder what exactly his master plan is for facilitating this type of movement and discovery in his newer dancers.

I came into his office with questions about the lack of modern, contemporary, or atypical training in his current company schedule at Mystic ballet. It baffled me that the dancers would transition from a classically structured class to very contemporary repertoire. I referenced my own experience with the Gaga technique (a type of movement language employed by Ohad Naharian and his studentshttp://www.batsheva.co.il/en/?iid=4 ) and mentioned how I thought it would be an effective type of tool for the way he wants  his dancers to work with organic movement. Goran is strongly against employing a stylized form of technique to facilitate discovery when he believes that the rehearsal process can accomplish the exact same thing. Rather than investing in a “marketed and capitalistic” dance workshop phenomenon like Gaga, Goran spends time working with the individual dancers as they work through the choreography stimulating their artistic process and being present in all aspects of their evolution in the company. It is obvious that Goran is passionate about molding his dancers to think and work in a specific way. Therefore, he would not take the time and the capital to use a “recipe” to do this for him. While I don’t believe that Gaga technique or various other uses of psychological and physical exploration of movement are a “recipe” for cloned dancers I do understand where he is coming from.

I decided to take a look back at my own revelation, a personal unearthing of contemporary movement style that was finally unique to me and not a larger part of an established technique that I had been trying to perfect for so many years.

After years in strict classical ballet training I continued a technical study of ballet and modern at the Southern Methodist dance program. Graham class forced my body to move in strange and new ways, proving to be frustrating yet eventually rewarding undertaking. However, this was still a continuation of a prescribed teaching model that left little room for personal discovery. It was not until the beginning of sophomore year that my good friend set a piece of her choreography and risked taking me into her fold. I performed a soloist role in this piece of pure and raw gestural movement, a type of individuality that I did not think I was capable of exuding in the intimate setting of student choreographic work. I had to completely step away from the mechanics of the steps and realize how my perception and my body needed to work to make it happen. This was the moment in my dance career where I began to understand how important it was to define movement based on my own personal investigation.

Goran is trying to find these moments for his dancers. He is trying to prod their artistic soul and draw out conceptual thought about the choreography through the ways they react physically and spiritually to the movement. This is how the dancer is able to truly identify with the movement and add multiple dimensions of individuality and quality come performance time. Personally, I think that this type of investigation requires a technical counterpart other than ballet, a full vocabulary of modern movement. I have witnessed and lived a dance that was almost always characterized by a strong technical background. But who I am to say that achieving this type of choreographic maturity in a dancer is no possible without a full dance education in multiple fields. Goran used Coco as an example. A classically trained ballet dancer who did not want to move in any sort of natural or grotesque manner is now the star of these contemporary pieces. With more intimately real movement than I often see in classically trained dancers she certainly counts as an example of Goran’s ability to mold dancers into eloquent artists.

I also have to consider that my current perspective relies on only the first two weeks of his operation. I have not be able to see how the addition of choreographers to the rehearsal will change the dynamic of the studio and the learning process for the dancers. Gabriella Lamb will be coming to Mystic Ballet for the next week teaching class and directing company rehearsal. I look forward to observing how she affects the artistic process of the budding company for the next week in order to broaden my opinion on Goran’s larger scheme.