Dancing badly and gladlyA garlandWineHoneyMusic played for others
Invocation Approach
Tone
Warm and playful
Address
TerpsichoreDance-LovingLeader of the Chorus
Relationship
The rhythm that carries the body past its shyness
Warning
She asks the body to move and not to perform
Resonance
Dancers celebrants and those who have stopped moving
Symbols
The lyreThe plectrumThe garlandThe dancing foot
Mythology Summary
Terpsichore, she who delights in the dance, is one of the nine Muses named by Hesiod (Theogony 78), daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and the chorus is her element in a way it is not the others'. Her allocation to dance and choral song belongs to the later handbooks, and she is shown with the lyre and plectrum; the Greek chorus was itself a dancing and singing body, so the Muse of dance stands close to the root of what a Muse is. Cult was collective at Helicon and at the Thespian Mouseia (Pausanias 9.29-30).
Modern Practice
The Muse of the moving body: called at the start of a celebration, a ritual, or a season that wants a dance in it. The offering is participation rather than performance - a body in a room with other bodies, keeping time.