Music: Very Funny, Very Sad

There were only eleven students; if they could find a twelfth, they could buy their dancing lessons cheaper. They descended on a pint-sized teen-ager backstage in a Dresden theater who had hopes of becoming a stage designer. How would he like to study under Dancer Mary Wigman, the new rage of Europe? He was willing: Before long, Harald Kreutzberg was the prize of the lot.

Last week, Manhattan’s dancers and dance fans—from nightclub whirlers to classic ballerinas—turned out to see the shiny-pated, lithe little fellow whom most of them consider the greatest male dancer since Nijinsky. It had been ten years since Kreutzberg had danced in the U.S., but at 44 he was still as mobile of face, and as agile of step and gifted of satire as ever. He is one of the few dancers alive who, with no company of dancers to surround him, no scenery to set him off, and only a piano to accompany him, could command the attention of a sellout audience for an entire evening, and leave them begging for more.

Kreutzberg’s first big success—and his last haircut—came in 1925 when he danced a dramatic part in the ballet Don Morte, based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. Says Kreutzberg: “I wanted to look very dreary. I tried a mask, then a cap, but that made me look unreal. It was summertime, so I shaved my head. The ballet girls said my make-up looked wonderful, then touched my head and shrieked.” His next role was that of a bald Chinese. He has kept his head shaved ever since; when his dances require it, he wears masks or wigs which he designs himself. During the war, Kreutzberg danced a few recitals in his native Austria, but mainly, he says, tried to keep out of sight: “I just appeared, then disappeared.” The Germans finally put him in uniform—he spent a year swabbing hospital floors in Italy. When he saw a chance, he fled, and surrendered to the U.S. Army. After three months in prison camp, he was released. He feels he has lost time to make up, and a good many things yet to say in his character dancing. Says Kreutzberg: “I am a very sad person, a very funny person, and a very silly person. And they all want to speak.”