The hyporchema was a lively kind of mimic dance which accompanied the songs used in the worship of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

, especially among the Dorians. It was performed by men and women. It is comparable to the geranos (γερανός), the ritual "crane dance" associated with Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

.

A chorus of singers at the festivals of Apollo usually danced around the altar, while several other persons were appointed to accompany the action of the song with an appropriate mimic performance. Hyporchema was thus a lyric dance, and often passed into the playful and comic, whence Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

 compares it with the cordax

Cordax

The cordax , was a provocative, licentious, and often obscene mask dance of ancient Greek comedy. In his play the The Clouds, Aristophanes complains that other playwrights of his time try to hide the feebleness of their plays by bringing an old woman onto the stage to dance the cordax...

 of comedy. It had, according to the supposition of Müller, like all the music and poetry of the Dorians, originated in Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

, but was at an early period introduced in the island of Delos

Delos

The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...

, where it seems to have continued to be performed down to the time of Lucian

Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

.

A similar kind of dance was the geranos (crane dance), which Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

 on his return from Crete was said to have performed in Delos, and which was customary in this island as late as the time of Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

. The leader of this dance was called geranoulkos. It was performed with blows, and with various turnings and windings , and was said to be an imitation of the windings of the Cretan labyrinth

Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos...

. When the chorus was at rest, it formed a semicircle, with leaders at the two wings.

The poems or songs which were accompanied by the hyporchema were likewise called hyporchemata. The first poet to whom such poems are ascribed was Thaletas

Thaletas

Thaletas or Thales of Crete was an early Greek musician and lyric poet.The position of Thaletas is one of the most interesting, and at the same time most difficult points, in that most interesting and difficult subject, the early history of Greek music and lyric poetry...

 of Crete: their character must have been in accordance with the playfulness of the dance which bore the same name, and by which they were accompanied. The fragments of the hyporchemata of Pindar

Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...

confirm this supposition, for their rhythms are peculiarly light, and have a very imitative and graphic character. These characteristics must have existed in a much higher degree in the hyporchematic songs of Thaletas.