Dream away

The Artistic Director of GBCM has no regrets about his first collaboration with Stephan Thoss in 2011, when the company restaged Searching for Home, a short piece for 16 dancers, set to music by Philip Glass, first performed by the resident ballet company at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden in 2008. Following the enthusiastic response elicited by Thoss’ work — the psychological journey of a woman discovering the multiple facets of her personality — Pankov wanted to showcase the choreographer’s rare talent for creating episodic yet coherent storylines. “He is amazingly dynamic, overflowing with energy, and he greatly impressed the company’s dancers. He transformed them, in fact, to the point where I could no longer recognize them,” declared Pankov. “Some of them seemed to recapture their youth in their roles in Searching for Home. One rather reserved dancer suddenly opened up like a flower, and everyone surprised me in one way or another. Stephan Thoss gives so much; he’s so inspirational that the dancers do everything they can to surpass themselves. They jumped for joy when they heard they were going to work with him again.” Showing complete confidence in the choreographer, Gradimir Pankov is giving Thoss free rein to choose the form and theme of his new work, with a view to producing a full-scale ballet for the company’s entire troupe of 38 dancers.