Alan M. Kriegsman | Dance critic, 84

Alan M. "Mike" Kriegsman, 84, a critic for the Washington Post whose prose style earned the first Pulitzer Prize for dance coverage, died Aug. 31 of heart ailments at his home in Chevy Chase, Md.

The death was confirmed by Suzanne Carbonneau, a dance critic and historian.

In an interview, Mikhail Baryshnikov, the Soviet-born dancer and former artistic director of the American Ballet Theatre, called Mr. Kriegsman "one of the best writers" on dance. He said that Mr. Kriegsman was an accomplished pianist whose educational background in music "brought an intelligent approach to writing about music in choreography."

Soft-spoken and erudite, Mr. Kriegsman could become animated by detailed conversations about the use of the music of Bach and other composers in a dance performance. "Mike was very much a propagandist of art, and he was passionate about art education," Baryshnikov said. "He was a classy bohemian."

Arts criticism became a Pulitzer category in 1970, and journalists had won for music, architecture, television, and film before Mr. Kriegsman was recognized in 1976.

Mr. Kriegsman was born Feb. 28, 1928, in Brooklyn, N.Y. After briefly studying physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he served in the Army during the post-World War II occupation of Japan.

He traced his interest in dance to a lecture taught by musicologist Curt Sachs at Columbia University, where Mr. Kriegsman received a bachelor's degree in 1951 and master's degree in music in 1953.

Mr. Kriegsman pursued a doctorate in musicology at Columbia before entering journalism full time in 1960 as the music and drama critic of the San Diego Union.

In 1957, he married Sali Ann Ribakove, an author and administrator who became dance director at the National Endowment for the Arts. Besides his wife, survivors include a brother. - Washington Post