George Balanchine's Apollo

This ballet depicts Apollo, the young god of music, who is visited and instructed by three Muses: Calliope, Muse of poetry, whose symbol is a tablet; Polyhymnia, Muse of mime, whose symbol is a mask that represents the power of gesture; and Terpsichore, Muse of dance and song, whose symbol is a lyre.

Apollo
Choreography by George Balanchine
© The George Balanchine Trust

Performed by Houston Ballet. Dancers: Andrew Murphy, Mireille Hassenboehler, Kelly Myernick, and Bridgett Zehr.

www.houstonballet.org

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Houston Ballet
• Stanton Welch
• George Balanchine
• Apollo
• American dance
• dance
• ballet
• Mireille Hassenboehler
• Andrew Murphy
• Kelly Myernick

[eyesk8er]

I saw the Houston Ballet performance of Apollo in Saint Louis, Mo. The dancers were excellent, yet some parts of the Apollo seemed different from the original Balanchine even though the program did not indicate that anyone had added to or altered the chorography. Could the ballet have mutated over time because of modern personal stylistic preferences or lapses in memory of those passing this information on to succeeding generations of dancers? What's going on?

[houstonballet]

@eyesk8er The choreography is as close to the original as possible. Whenever we perform a Balanchine work, someone from the Balanchine Trust is sent to us to set the ballet on the company. Typically these choreologists danced under Balanchine at New York City Ballet and are well-versed in the movement.

[houstonballet]

This video was shot in 2004.

[danandmary11]

That we could all be visited by such muses and respond so gracefully to the instruction!!

[manga12]

Yes and his dance was a distinct american style of theatrical dance, the works he put together were inventive in movement and mastery of space use is great, as opposed to today where dancers no longer feel the music they are so focused on the technique of the dance it leaves it very robotic, and crisp but no feel to it except for the russian dancers, today also contemporary and minimalist post modern dance is the order of the dance and I dont like it, its not as graceful to the eyes for me.

[porcelain100]

@eyesk8er awww that sucks..  i wonder if maybe someone just messed up on stage that day and everyone went with it...?

[aylajj]

beautiful

[cjoyoates]

@houstonballet no wonder why i don't see aria in it.

[BakedHarp]

the timing is definitely altered from the version I saw NYCB perform

[christopher2391]

Sadly not available even on VHS. This ballet very dear to me and I think one of Balanchine's masterworks is out of print. There used to be an ABT version with Barishnikov on VHS which is out of the catalogue.

[marthyna22]

Does anyone know where I could find a DVD of the ballet (apollo or apollòn musagète)? thanks

[takharov]

Balanchine is my favourite choreographer. It's a real shame that more performances are not recorded for DVD.

This is partly the fault of the Balanchine Foundation. They should be spreading the word not hindering it.