Trivia

Famous German dancer-choreographer

Harald Kreutzberg 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.

Portraits of Kreutzberg and Yvonne 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.

In 1920, he performed a "hashish dance" at a student carnival. The piece was so well received, he decided to enroll in dance classes.

While many gay male dancers continued careers under the National Socialist government, Kreutzberg was the most notable as his long-term partnership with Friedrich Wilckens was an open secret. While other gay men were imprisoned and forced to wear pink triangles, Kreutzberg was encouraged to tour throughout Germany and abroad.

In 1926, Kreutzberg appeared as Fear in the ballet Die Nächtlichen. The role was meant to depict a sinister, dissonant evocation of demonic forces. Terpis' next production was Don Morte, a version of Edgar Allen Poe's story The Masque of the Red Death. For this piece, Kreutzberg danced the role of an eccentric jester, wearing a gold costume and mask with bald head. The opera costume shop had trouble making a bald wig, so Kreutzberg shaved off all of his blond hair. His appearance made such a strong impression on audiences, he maintained the signature look for the rest of his life.

Kreutzberg trained at the Dresden Ballet School and studied with the founders of Ausdruckstanz, Mary Wigman and Rudolf von Laban. 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. Dancing with a large ensemble made Kreutzberg somewhat uncomfortable. Sensing this and recognizing his gift for acting, the opera director cast him in small, yet unforgettable, character roles. When Terpis accepted the position of ballet director for the Berlin State Opera, he took Kreutzberg with him.

Between 1929 and 1931, Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi made four comprehensive tours of both Europe and the U.S., where they appeared on both coasts and throughout the Midwest, possibly as the most profitable modern dance act in U.S. history.

He was cast in character roles in the Italian-West German film Labyrinth (1959) as Sir Agamemnon, and in the West German TV movies Annoncentheater - Ein Abendprogramm des deutschen Fernsehens im Jahre (1962) as Artist and Das Kabinett des Professor Enslen (1964) as Professor Enslen.

He attended the Academy of Applied Art in Dresden, he was reportedly an excellent draftsman.

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 1944, Kreutzberg was drafted into the German Army, but Americans soon captured him on the Italian front. He spent two and half months in a prisoner of war camp. In a letter to a friend, he wrote he had a "good time," there, performing scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream and playing Mephisto in selections from Faust. When he was released, he returned to Germany and resumed his international career.

In 1928, Kreutzberg collaborated with Friedrich Wilckens and Yvonne Georgi, a former student of von Laban, on a grotesque pantomime, Robes, Pierre and Co., which presented a man falling murderously in love with a shop window mannequin. It featured dance sequences accompanied by the sound of typewriters, gunshots and Kreutzberg himself singing a falsetto parody of a coloratura aria.

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.

After retiring from the stage in 1959, he choreographed for others and continued to teach until his death on April 25, 1968.

From an early age, Kreutzberg was also interested in costuming and style. During the years of hyperinflation in the Weimer Republic, he assisted with family finances by designing women's clothing for a local department store.

Though largely forgotten by the 21st century, he was the most famous German male dancer of the 20th century.

Similarly to Martha Graham, he created most of his costumes. There are numerous photographs of the inventive garments: the rope noose wrapped around his calf for Hangman's Dance on the Grave of His Victim, the futuristic cage-like headgear worn in the King's Dance, and the string line drawing on his jacket in Three Hungarian Dances.