Fusion dance: breaking through the barriers of style and technique.

Company class was about to begin. Seventeen dancers, who had been rehearsing all afternoon, scattered to the sides of the stage. Some of the men disappeared into the wings and returned carrying portable barres. These they set up around the middle of the dance floor, and company members took their places at the equipment which has become a symbol of Western civilization's dance training. One of the men, the company's director and choreographer, gave the class while participating in it. First he told his dancers to take a firm, open stance and "plie deeply and slowly."

A small ballet ensemble taking a traditional class? Not quite. This was a leading modem or, rather, postmodern troupe -- the Mark Morris Dance Group. As the class proceeded, so did its resemblance to ballet. Morris repeatedly used conventional French ballet terminology, which he interlaced with descriptive movement designations in English. The biggest differences between this class and the usual ballet lesson were the corrections Morris gave. He seemed less interested in proper placement of body parts and correct alignment of the musculature than in movement dynamics and qualities.

As is well known, Morris's dancers don't look like typical dancers, balletic or modern, but more like people in the street. That most of them dance like professionals is the result of past training plus work on those movement attributes which Morris was intent that they get right: visibility, musicality, texture, imagination, truthfulness.

What the Mark Morris group does -- fusing classical ballet, modern dance, and other movement vocabularies -- is far from unique or novel, of course. After the First World War in Europe, and in America after the Second, fusions abounded. Not all were intentional; modern dance choreographers sometimes were hired by theaters whose ballet-trained dancers they couldn't fire. Particularly successful fusions were developed for the Ballets Russes by choreographers Nijinsky and Massine, and by Heinrich Kroller in Munich and Vienna.

As soon as someone crystallizes a technique, someone else tries fusing it with another. This has been the rule in modern dance since its beginnings. But are all fusions equal? Fokine, Leo Staats, and Balanchine often brought movements other than balletic ones into their works yet transformed them to look classical. Nijinska sometimes chose to turn all her material into classicism, sometimes not. Wigman and Graham in later years allowed to filter into the training of their dancers, but their choreography never lost its modern dance identity. Neither has Merce Cunningham's, more for reasons of form than of movement qualities. Not so a host of others'.

In 1950s and 1960s, two young Americans, John Butler and Glen Tetley, tried to join Graham modern psychological ballet. Their type of amalgam became influential in the Netherlands. In France at home, though, Butler and Tetley were criticized for robbing modern dance of its raw strength and ballet of its finesse. As it turned out, Alvin Ailey's spontaneous fusions from those decades have more staying power.

Early modern dancers wanted to create individual techniques de novo. Many of today's choreographers say that as long as their dancers have technique, they couldn't care less about "a technique." Paul Taylor leaves teaching to others. His take on technique is that today "there's more of it." Has anything been lost? His reply refers to innocence: "Dancers now want to be paid." But Taylor's stated indifference to the mechanics of dance is belied by his fascination with bodies. One look at his company attests to his preference for the sturdy, the solid, the broad frontal. Ways of moving follow from particular builds like conclusions from premises.

Fusion has become so usual that many of today's contemporary dance companies, when touring, rely on a functional class that's ballet based -- "loosely balletic," as strict classical teachers might say. Intermingled with such academic values as stretch, openness, and smooth strength are elements of other dance and movement forms. Distinctive styles of modern dance training are still taught in specialized schools in the capitals of the dance world and at big academies which can afford not to give all-purpose classes.

In the theater, though, the full and pure Graham or Laban technique has become as historical as the pavane. The interplay of contraction and release, for example, or "runs" along movement scales are now adapted to barre work and a bit of turnout. Company choreographers and their designated teachers have infused their current favorite ingredients from America's or Central Europe's modern dance techniques, movement therapy, folk dance, gymnastics, or ritual exercises into their class work.

Eric Hampton, about whose choreography some very finicky critics have been raving recently, uses "all I ever saw" when he teaches students at Maryland Youth Ballet or the dancers of his own Eric Hampton Dance. By "all" he means not just in class or onstage, but also out on sidewalks, sitting in front of TV and movie screens -- even in the painting he used to do. A child tapper, then a Juilliard graduate (class of '68) who performed with the Scapino Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theater, and Washington Ballet, Hampton can give class in a variety of ballet and modern styles. His studies have included "Cecchetti, as well as Antony Tudor's musical, flowing Cecchetti; Limon; and Graham, as well as Charles Czarny's Graham."

There are times when a set technique is called for, but Hampton prefers to range widely, then select. In the 1960s, he remembers, his generation "was less aware of technique but more focused on performing than young dancers today. The emphasis in class now is on lengthening the line; it used to be on tucking under. Teaching was done by example. One had to follow strictly. Today, with hands-on instruction, training isn't forced and is therefore healthier. Also, men's bodies are better now, and there are therapies that support technique, but there's not necessarily more artistry."

Distinct, and in demand both in Europe and North America, are classes given by Jacek Luminski, director and a choreographer of the Silesian Dance Theater in Bytom, Poland. Luminski teaches the results of what he's learned. From his schooling in Soviet-style ballet come footwork, a fondness for the fondu, and pirouettes. But infused into these movements are ingredients from other traditions. Contractions are combined with the fondu. Different body parts -- sometimes head, hands, or elbows -- lead in pirouettes. Varying weight, suspension, or momentum further diversifies these turns -- as do different types of endings.

Instead of joining a ballet company, Luminski went to work for Poland's Yiddish Theater, which spurred him to research folk dances and ritual gestures. He learned about the body's planes and virtual versus real space from Hasidic Judaism -- how to shape the contrast between the vertical and horizontal in an anatomically sound way. From the dances of Poland's Catholic villages comes Luminski's use of the hips as a tool. His interest in historical American and Central European modem, the Alexander technique, and body-mind concepts led him to value leans, impulses, and the importance of breathing. He prefers "enlivening" the body down on the floor, but concedes that doing it standing at the barre can be a therapeutic supplement.

While none of these elements are new, Luminski compounds them in ways that give dancers surprising intensity and nuance. Like many contemporary choreographers, he doesn't think of his classes as examples of a codified technique because that would put an end to learning and experimenting.

If one believes in the evolution of dance technique -- that it gets better -- dance history's golden ages have been those times when advances in the classroom and developments in choreography have propelled each other mutually. When ballet was taught by Jean Cebron at Germany's Folkwang school but wasn't used onstage, the entire dance quotient of performances became impoverished. In the works of Folkwang graduates Pina Bausch and Reinhild Hoffmann, movement is the least interesting component of their theater. Susanne Linke's works escape this fate because of her interest in historical modern.

Today's preference for fusion over crystallization can be seen as a healthy reaction to past dogmas. Yet there's danger in so many choreographers being equivocal about what makes one technique differ from another. As always, the future will be determined by choices made today.

George Jackson is a Dance Magazine, correspondent in Washington, D.C.