astonishingly spry Joy Williams Brown, who’d danced Calliope with Balanchine in Mexico City in 1945, at last Saturday night’s Balanchine: The City Center Years. The program opened with–that’s right, Apollo, performed by the Mariinsky. I liked Xander Parish’s interpretation because it was an interpretation. There are many ways to be Apollo. Nicholas Magallanes, who danced Apollo opposite Joy in 1945, would have been entirely different. Viva all the differences. . .
John Taras told me something interesting about Apollo. He’d seen Lew Christensen perform it frequently during the 1941 tour of American Ballet Caravan.
“I know there’s a tape, video somewhere of Conrad Ludlow doing Apollo, who I’m sure was taught by Lew. Well, you wouldn’t recognize it. It’s quite different from what we do. . . the way it was done when I was ballet master.”