Jean Babilée is a dancer U.S. balletomanes have been hearing about, in brief flashes from Paris, since the end of the war. The first flash was that he could leap as no one since Nijinsky. Then came a tale of an astonishing physical feat: in Jean Cocteau's Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (TIME, Dec. 9, 1946), Babilée hung by his neck on a gallows for a full minute, with no more extra support than he could get from wrapping one arm around a pillar.
In Manhattan last week, a U.S. audience found first-hand that the news about France's best male dancer...
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