how to call the controller via the modal link in codeigniter

I'm new to Codeigniter and hope to learn best practices as I go. I currently have a table generated by DB.
HTML Table:

<tr>
    <td>
      <a class="galName" href="#myModal" data-toggle="modal" >
        <?php echo $gal['name']; ?>
      </a>
    </td>
    <td>
      <?php echo $gal['clientName']; ?>
    </td>
</tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>

The Modal:

<div class="modal fade hide modal-creator" id="myModal" style="display: none;" aria-hidden="true">
    <div class="modal-header">
        <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="modal"></button>
        <h3>Edit Gallery</h3>
    </div>
    <div class="modal-body"><?php echo form_open('url'); ?>

    <div class="row">
        <div class="span5">
            <?php print_r($galleryName); ?>
            <div class="control-group">
                <?php
                    $galleryName = array(
                        'id'            => 'galleryName',
                        'name'          => 'galleryName',
                        'placeholder'   => 'Gallery Name',
                        'required'      => 'required',
                    );
                    echo form_label('Gallery Name:', 'galleryName');
                    echo form_input($galleryName);
                ?>
            </div><!-- /control-group -->
       </div><!--/span5-->
   </div><!--/row-->
</div><!-- /modal-body -->

<div class="modal-footer">
    <!-- <p class="span3 resize">The following images are sized incorrectly. Click to edit</p> -->
    <a href="javascript:;" class="btn" data-dismiss="modal">Close</a>
    <a href="javascript:;" class="btn btn-primary">Next</a>
</div>

The link opens a bootstrap modal to which I want to pass the gallery data. I know I can pass the data through jQuery, but is it possible to keep this modal in the MVC framework, and if so, how does one call the controller via the modal link?

In my opinion, an Entity-Relationship model (ER-diagram) is a high-level data model that describes the structure of the database in a pictorial form. I'm reading this blog on data models to get a better understanding. In layman's terms, an ER diagram is used to easily represent the logical structure of a database. Because the ER model creates a conceptual view of the data, it can be used as a blueprint for future database implementations.

Thank you very much for your assistance, and I would be delighted to accept any suggestions for CodeIgniter resources. I'm currently working through the Nettuts videos, which are dated, as well as the user guide.