Dancing for Apollo.

"I dreamed of dancing as a child," says out dancer and choreographer Richard Baniels. "But I thought a good Midwestern Jewish boy didn't go to dance class." Being a good boy hasn't been a priority for some time now, but Baniels, $4, still seems haunted by youth--in the person of Apollo, the eternally youthful god of creativity. For Telling Tales, his program running September 29 to October 2 at the Banspace Project in New York City, Daniels boldly created a new modern dance to Stravinsk3fs"Apollo," first written for ballet giant George Balanchine. Daniels's "Apollo and the Muses" will be accompanied by a little-known piano version of the Stravinsky score performed by out composer-pianist Nurit Tilles. The evening also offers music by gay composer Gerald Busby.

"Dance is how I express my experience of living through HIV," says Daniels, who estimates that he's been positive since the early 1980s. "My Apollo is about creativity coming later in life--I think that's my story."