Harald Kreutzberg (December 11, 1902 – April 25, 1968) was a German dancer and choreographer associated with the Ausdruckstanz movement, a form in which the individual, artistic expression of feelings or emotions is essential. Though largely forgotten by the 21st century, he was the most famous German male dancer of the 20th century.
Education and early career
Kreutzberg was born in Reichenberg, Austria-Hungary (now Liberec in the northernmost part of Bohemia, Czech Republic). He and his family subsequently lived in Breslau, Leipzig and Dresden, Germany. His father and grandfather worked as circus performers and wild animal act entertainers. His mother encouraged his penchant for play-acting and theatricality. At age 6, he entertained at Dresden's operetta house.
He attended the Academy of Applied Art in Dresden; In 1920, he performed a "hashish dance" at a student carnival. The piece was so well received, he decided to enroll in dance classes. The Ausdruckstanz phenomenon of the early to mid-20th century flourished in German-speaking Europe. It grew out of the Lebensreform (life reform) movement which promoted physical culture, among other healthy practices, as a means of rejecting the industrialization, materialism and urbanization of modern life.
In 1923, he accepted the invitation of Max Terpis, a former Wigman student, to dance in Hannover where Terpis directed the Municipal Opera Ballet. Eyewitnesses to the productions were overwhelmed by Kreutzberg's charisma, he "added a theatricality that we did not have at this time," said one. Another recalled "his dramatic quality and terrific intensity…on stage he appeared seven foot tall, and he had a demanding spaciousness utilizing the whole stage."
In the U.S., critics praised Georgi, but gushed over Kreutzberg, "It is more inspiring to see him merely walk upon the stage with his singularly lithe and detached movement than to witness a whole evening's performance by the average male dancer. Mr. Kreutzberg combines a grave and incisive intelligence with a powerful gift of projection, a clear vision with a lively imagination, and all of these with a splendid physique and a technical facility which is actually lustrous."
Portraits of Kreutzberg and Georgi, together and alone, were printed on cigarette cards distributed as part of Cigarettenfabrik Orami's "Famous Dancers (Series E)" cards. Anna Pavlova, Josephine Baker, Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, Anton Dolin and Ted Shawn were also in this collection.
Partnership with Ruth Page
thumb|Ruth Page and Harald Kreutzberg, Country Dance, 1934
After touring with Georgi, Kreutzberg was involved in a number of brief dance partnerships: Elisabeth Grube, Tilly Losch and Ilse Meudtner. In 1930, he and Wilckens met Ruth Page, an American ballerina, aboard the Aquitania. The three hit it off immediately, forming a friendship and "artistic ménage a trois" that would last for decades.
In 1933, Page and Kreutzberg launched a "new and rather surprising partnership." Though the pairing of an American ballet dancer with an exponent of German modern dance seemed an unlikely collaboration, but the arrangement provided both artists with a number of advantages. Page, who lived in Chicago outside the dance mecca of New York, acquired a modernist, cosmopolitan aura as well as the musical support of Wilckens. Kreutzberg gained access to new performance venues and an escape from rising fascism and homophobic militancy at home. Both dancers capitalized on their contrasting, yet complimentary, personas. This aspect of his work proved to his advantage since it mirrored the regime's core ideology.
Kreutzberg reached the peak of his career during World War II. In September 1937, he was the featured dancer at German Art Week during the Paris International Exhibition. In 1939, he appeared at the Day of German Art in Munich.
In 1941, the performance pattern of the previous year was repeated. In the summer, Kreutzberg performed at the Kurhaus; in autumn, a tour was organized on his behalf. The 1943 shows were held under the auspices of the German Theater in The Netherlands. From 1942 to 1944 opera, dance and music concerts were organized in different Dutch cities, intended for members of the Wehrmacht. Members of the general public were welcome to attend and critics to write reviews in the press.
The Berlin Olympics of 1936
The Reich's Tanzfestspiele (dance festivals) were a prelude to the Olympic Games of 1936.
For Nazi Germany, the games were a perfect opportunity to showcase official ideology and demonstrate national strength. The inclusion of dance, as well as other new events, was solicited by the organizers as a means to include areas in which Germany was strong. None of the proposed inclusions were approved, however, the International Olympic Committee in Germany sent invitations to the world's most notable dancers to take part in an international dance competition. Recently appointed German Master of the Studio for Dance, von Laban organized and coordinated the event. Kreutzberg and Wigman were charged with assisting him. All three were to choreograph pieces that conformed to and celebrated Nazi ideology.
After seeing the dress rehearsal of Laban's work, Vom Tauwind und der neuen Freunde (Spring Wind and New Joy), Goebbels rejected it on the grounds it was "a poorly choreographed piece, one that was intellectual, and had nothing whatever to do with Germans."
Kreutzberg's portion of the extravaganza, called Waffentanz (Weapons Dance) or, alternatively, Swerttanz (Sword Dance), was more a theatrical representation than a dance. It began with 60 young men, representing two opposing, sword-wielding phalanxes, storming the stadium like a "wild horde" (New Prussian Newspaper, 1936) and shouting hostile cries. A mock battle ensued, resulting in the fall of one phalanx and a triumphant celebration by the other. The fallen troops remained in the field while the winners departed celebrating their victory. Kreutzberg's solo followed, ending with the dancer's heroic death by sword.
Paracelsus
In 1943, when Germany seemed certain to lose the war, Kreutzberg appeared as Der Gaulker (The Juggler) Fliegenbein in G. W. Pabst's propaganda film Paracelsus. In the story, Paracelsus (as a stand-in for Hitler) keeps the plague out of Basel by barring entry to the city. During an attempt by a greedy merchant to smuggle in goods, Fliegenbein, attached to the caravan, slips inside the city walls. Already infected, he escapes to a nearby tavern.
In a brief (approximately 65 second), brilliantly choreographed, hypnotic Totentanz, Kreutzberg performs a sequence that "ranks with the best ballet ever put on celluloid." He leads, but does not acknowledge, the mesmerized tavern patrons who follow his display of confused distress and an energy that swings between manic and sickly.
Military service
In 1944, Kreutzberg was drafted into the German Army, but Americans soon captured him on the Italian front. The solos primarily fell into two categories: charming and humorous character dances that frequently used pantomimic gestures and grotesque masks, and transcendental dances that conveyed emotional states.
Kreutzberg performed solos in the U.S. in the early 30s, and again in 1937, 1947, 1948 and 1953. The New York Times dance critic John Martin, who was a fan and follower of Kreutzberg's since his first U.S. appearances, was instrumental in rehabilitating his image after World War II, exonerating him as "a victim of circumstance." In an article for Time, Martin wrote, somewhat disingenuously, of the dancer's wartime record, "[Kreutzberg] danced a few recitals in his native Austria, but mainly he says, tried to keep out of sight: 'I just appeared, then disappeared.'
Kreutzberg made a rare U.S. TV appearance in the 1960s, when he was featured in the dual roles of Drosselmeyer and the Snow King, in a heavily abridged West German-American production of The Nutcracker. It aired on CBS in 1965 and was repeated several times afterward, but was superseded in 1977 by the full-length Baryshnikov version.
In 1955, he established a dance school in Bern, Switzerland. After retiring from the stage in 1959, he choreographed for others and continued to teach until his death on April 25, 1968. "He did a thousand things with his hands and the straight blue-lined silver scarf across his shoulders. He made his master of ceremonies everything from a silly slave to ceremony to a tragic power."
- Jester's Dance from Don Morte "an excellent composition in the narrative-dramatic vein, the story of a jester frantically and futilely attempting to escape the mask which he is doomed to wear. The gesture with which he forces his head into the mask is replete with a significance which can be communicated only in terms of movement. It cannot be recorded in words.
- Dance through the Streets, set to music by Isaac Albéniz, is a "graceful bit of mannered art, [that] represents him [as] best in his field. There is fantasy in this. It is pleasant to watch and extremely clever."
- Angel of the Annunciation, a dance that embodies "beauty of design, fascinating flow and sweep of movement combined with an impressive austerity of mood to make a work of art that was satisfying in all respects.
- Hangman's Dance on the Grave of his Victim was described by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle critic as a "sadistic grotesquerie," while the reviewer for The Arizona Daily Star wrote "he stamps and beats with his hands and seems even with the weight of his body to trample down the victim that he has hanged becomes (sic) a study in rage and hate." Photos depicting this dance show Kreutzberg in a costume that features a rope noose wrapped around his lower leg. set to music by Bedřich Smetana. According to the Times Colonist reviewer, "Vagabond's Song [was] full of joie-de-vivre, and ranging in mood from the wistful to a gay, youthful abandon expressed in great leaps and somersaults."
- Till Eulenspiegel, music by Wilckens, "was clever and amusing, but showed only the softer side of that inimitable German rogue." Another critic interpreted the piece slightly differently, "death's simulation to sleep was first portrayed, then with the shedding of the funereal black garb to reveal a scarlet tunic, he dramatized death in its more violent form, concluding with a majestic gesture and a haunting, sardonic laugh." "Each figure stands out like those in the medieval woodcuts of the dance of death." After the war, Kreutzberg made a film of The Eternal Circle. It was seldom shown as it was thought to be cursed. After its German premiere, the projectionist died. On its second showing, the theater caught fire.
Influence and legacy
thumb|Der Tänzer Harald Kreutzberg, charcoal drawing, Helene von Taussig, 1933
Early in his career, Kreutzberg aligned himself to an expressionistic approach to dance. He remained faithful to that aesthetic until the end of his life. That devotion, however, always accommodated his acute awareness of what pleased audiences. In that regard, he was an important influence in moving modern dance to a global, popular level. Kreutzberg incorporated feminine movements and costuming in his performances and challenged the stereotypical male roles of princes and mythical gods.
When asked by a reporter to disclose his theory of dance, Kreutzberg responded: "You must understand that we know technique, in fact are grounded in it, but as soon as we have achieved a certain amount of body control and physical gymnastics of movement, we project our minds into the dance and make our bodies express what we feel. Thus, the technique is submerged and made an unconscious undercurrent. Color, costume, music – all are consciously used only so far as they portray the emotion of the dance." To another interviewer, he described his role as that of "storyteller and painter."
DanceLab Berlin premiered an homage, H.K. – Quintett, in 2015. The choreographers looked at three core questions from Kreutzberg's biography: "How does identity develop between individuality and uniformity? What do the terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' mean, in light of the gender debate? And what is the role of the male dancer today?" Rather than reconstruct Kreutzberg's original pieces, the choreographers worked with five dancers to isolate gestures from Kreutzberg's movement vocabulary and combine them with contemporary movement.