“I dreamed of dancing as a child,” says gay dancer and choreographer Richard Daniel. “But I thought a good Midwestern Jewish boy didn’t go to dance class.”
Being a good boy hasn’t been a priority for sometime now, but Daniels, 54, still seems haunted by youth. How else to explain his fascination with Apollo, the eternally young god of art and creativity?
For “Telling Tales,” his program of dances for the Dancespace Project at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan’s East Village, which runs Sept. 29-Oct 2, Daniels boldly decided to create a new modern dance to Stravinsky’s “Apollo.” The orchestral piece was originally written for ballet giant George Balanchine.
“I’ve always had an odd response to Balanchine’s work,” says Daniels. “I’m trying to express what was missing for me (in his Apollo).”
Daniels’ “Apollo” will be accompanied by a little known piano version of Stravinsky score. At the keyboard will be lesbian composer/pianist Nurit Tilles, who also contributed an original rag-time piece for the evening’s other work “Telling Tales.” Other music on the evening is by gay composer Gerald Busby.
“Dance is how I express my experience of living through HIV,” says Daniels, who estimates he’s been positive since at least the early 1980s. “My Apollo is about creativity coming later in life… I think that’s my story.”
(A version of this story appeared in The Advocate.)
