Uday Shankar, an Indian dancer as well as choreographer, was born on December 8th, 1900, and passed away on September 26th, 1977. He is best known for infusing elements of Indian classical, folk, and tribal dance into a fusion style of dance that he later made popular in India, Europe, as well as the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. In India, he was a contemporary dance pioneer. Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s National Academy for Music, Dance, and Drama, presented him with its highest honour, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement, in 1962. The Indian government also gave him the Padma Vibhushan, its second-highest civilian award, in the year 1971.

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About Uday Shankar

The eldest son of his parents, Uday Shankar Chowdhury was born in a brahman household in Mumbai, Maharashtra, to an overseas family with roots in Narail (current Bangladesh). His mother Hemangini Devi came from a Zamindari lineage, and his father Shyam Shankar Chowdhury, a renowned barrister, was working for the Maharaja of Jhalawar in Rajasthan at the moment of his eldest son’s birth. The Nawabs gave his father the title ‘Harchowdhury’, but he preferred to go by ‘Chowdhury’, without the ‘Har’.  Rajendra Shankar, Debendra Shankar, Bhupendra Shankar, and Ravi Shankar were his younger brothers. Bhupendra, the youngest of his siblings, passed away in the year 1926. His father was a Sanskrit expert who earned his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University after graduating with honours from Calcutta University. Due to his father’s frequent business travels, Uday, his mother and his brothers spent a lot of time at his maternal uncle’s home in Nasratpur. Additionally, Uday studied at a number of places, including Nasratpur, Gazipur, Varanasi, and Jhalawar.

His drawing and crafts instructor at his school in Gazipur, Ambika Charan Mukhopaddhay, taught him music and photography. He moved to Mumbai in the year 1918 when he was eighteen years old to pursue his studies at the J. J. School of Art and the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. By this time, Shyam Shankar had left Jhalawar and relocated to London. He practised law here, got married to an English woman, and then became an amateur impresario who brought Indian dance and music to Britain. Uday later moved to London to live with his father, and on August 23, 1920, he enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London to study painting with Sir William Rothenstein. During one of the charity shows his father staged in London, renowned Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova happened to be there. He danced at many such shows. His career was affected by this for a long time to come.

Career of Uday Shankar

Uday Shankar had no formal instruction in any of the Indian classical dance styles. His presentations, though, were inventive. He had been introduced to ballet throughout his stay in Europe, and in childhood to Indian classical dance, and folk dance. He made the decision to combine components from both dances to create a new dance he termed Hi-dance. After learning the Rajput painting and Mughal painting traditions at the British Museum, he moved on to translate classical Indian dance forms and their associated iconography to dance moves. Additionally, he met various performing artists while living in Britain. Later, after receiving the French government’s “Prix de Rome” scholarship for advanced art studies, he travelled to Rome. His interactions with these performers developed over time, as did the notion of modernising Indian dance. His initial encounters with renowned Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova marked a turning point. She was seeking for artists to work with on projects with an Indian theme.

This prompted the composition of two ballets with Hindu themes for inclusion in her staging of “Oriental Impressions”, and “Radha-Krishna”, a duet with Anna. The Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden hosted the ballet’s performance. Later, he continued to create and choreograph ballets, including one that was performed across America and was inspired by the frescoes of the Ajanta Caves. His particular brand of dancing eventually became known as “Hi-dance”, however, he later referred to it as “Creative dance”. Before going out on his own in Paris, he spent an additional 1.5 years working with Anna. In 1927, Simon Barbiere, a French pianist who had become Shankar’s student and dance partner, and Alice Boner, a Swiss sculptor who was interested in learning about Indian art history, all travelled back to India with Shankar. Rabindranath Tagore personally greeted him and convinced him to establish a performing arts school in India.

Together with Alice Boner, who had by this point become one of his students, he established Europe’s first Indian dance group upon his return to Paris in 1931. In order to support his newly developed movements, he developed a new template for music alongside musicians Vishnu Dass Shirali and Timir Baran. On March 3rd, 1931, he gave his first series of dance performances at the Champs-Elysees Theatre in Paris, which served as his home base as he travelled throughout Europe. Soon after, he set out on a seven-year tour of Europe and the United States with his own troupe, whom he dubbed “Uday Shankar and his Hindu Ballet,” under the direction of Celebrity Series of Boston director Aaron Richmond and entrepreneur Sol Hurok. Along with his French dancing partner Simkie, he gave his debut American performance in New York City in January 1933. A reception was hosted at the Grand Central Art Galleries as a part of the visit. After that, Shankar and his group embarked on an 84-city national tour.

He is rightfully given credit for launching a new period for traditional Indian temple dances, which up until then had been regarded for their stringent interpretations and were also continuing through their own revival. His adaptation of European theatrical methods to Indian dance made his art extremely popular both in India and abroad. In the meantime, his brother Ravi Shankar was promoting Indian classical music abroad. In 1936, he accepted Leonard Knight Elmhirst’s invitation to spend a six-month residency at Dartington Hall in Totnes, Devon, with his troupe and star dancer Simkie. Leonard Knight Elmhirst had already helped Rabindranath Tagore construct Sriniketan, near Shanti Niketan. There were also the German modern dancer as well as choreographer Kurt Jooss, the Russian author Anton Chekhov’s nephew Michel Chekhov, as well as another German, Rudolf Laban, who had created a system of dance notation. His expressionist dance was only made more exuberant by this event.

He created the “Uday Shankar India Cultural Center” in Simtola, Uttarakhand, 3 km from Almora, in 1938, and hosted Sankaran Namboodri for Kathakali, Kandappa Pillai for Bharatanatyam, Ambi Singh for Manipuri, and Ustad Allauddin Khan for music. Guru Dutt, Shanti Bardhan, Simkie, Amala, Satyavati, Narendra Sharma, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Prabhat Ganguly, Zohra Sehgal, Uzra, Lakshmi Shankar, as well as Shanta Gandhi accompanied him as students shortly after. His own brothers Rajendra, Debendra, and Ravi all enrolled in his classes. However, the centre was forced to close in the year 1942 after only four years due to a lack of funding. His lone film, Kalpana (Imagination), which was based on his dance and featured both he and his wife Amala Shankar dancing, was filmed in 1948 when he collected his energy after his students dispersed. The movie was created and filmed in Madras at Gemini Studios.

The movie was digitally restored in the year 2008 by the Bologna Cineteca in collaboration with the National Film Archive of India and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, among other organisations. In 1960, Uday Shankar moved to Ballygunge, Kolkata, and in 1965, the “Uday Shankar Center for Dance” was inaugurated. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the organisation’s highest honour, in 1962 for his lifetime contributions to Indian dance.

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Personal Life

Ravi Shankar’s older brother is Uday. He wed Amala Shankar, his dance partner, and the two of them had two children: Ananda Shankar, born in 1942, and Mamata Shankar, born in 1955. In contrast to his uncle, Ravi Shankar, Ananda Shankar was educated as a pianist and composer under Dr. Lalmani Misra. Over time, he became well-known for his fusion music, which combined European and Indian musical influences. In addition to becoming a well-known actress, Mamata Shankar, a dancer like her parents, has appeared in films by Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. She also travels widely over the world and is the director of the “Udayan Dance Company” in Kolkata.

Legacy of Uday Shankar

Amala Shankar served as the Director-in-Charge of the Uday Shankar India Culture Center in Kolkata from the time it was established in 1965. Uday Shankar (born in 1900; died in 1977) and Amala Shankar (born in 1919; died in 2020) made the decision to build the organisation. With Amala Shankar successfully directing the school and the dance group for the following 50 years, Shankar’s pedagogical system was adopted and developed in this institution. The school persisted until 2015, maintaining a commitment to advancing Shankar’s theories and procedures for inventive and creative dance creation. The Uday Shankar India Culture Center has continued to provide instruction in traditional dance forms such as Kathak, Bharata Natyam, Manipuri, Kathak, and Odissi, as well as instruction in Uday Shankar’s creative processes, which include observation, invention, and improvisation. Amala Shankar worked hard to perform choreographies by Uday Shankar, as well as fresh ideas developed with assistance from Guru P. Raghavan (Kathakali Guru at the institution for 45 years), and her group of committed and beautiful musicians, as a tribute to Uday Shankar and to solidify his legacy.

With the assistance of the Indian government and private financing organisations, the performance group of the Uday Shankar India Culture Centre undertook extensive international and domestic tours. The legacy that Uday and Amala Shankar left behind will be carried on by the subsequent generations of talented dancers they both trained. Through an organic process, this legacy aims to develop healthy bodies and minds of imaginative thinkers and dancers dedicated to empowering an increasing number of people through dance. Major Uday Shankar plays and dances, such as Samanya Kshati, Mahamanav – a shadow play, and Labor and Machinery (Full-length dance productions), were reproduced by Amala Shankar. She recreated Shankar’s choreographies for a variety of dances, including Raas Leela, Snanam, Village Festival, Kartikeya, and many more. She developed new performance choreographies, including Seeta Swayamvara, Yuga Chanda, Vasavadutta, Chidambara, and Kal Mrigaya. These choreographies were inspired by her son, the internationally acclaimed musician and composer Ananda Shankar, and featured his musical compositions.

Amala Shankar insisted on the total growth of dancers, and the pupils were taught wardrobe and stage design in addition to the methods for creating movements and choreography, following Shankar’s conception of art as essential for comprehensive education. In 1991, she received the Padma Bhushan. She is a 99-year-old living legend who has made spreading Shankar’s art and teaching methods her life’s work. Uday’s younger brother, the sitar player Ravi Shankar, organised the Uday-Ustav Festival, a four-day celebration in New Delhi in December 1983 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his professional debut in 1923. The festival featured performances by his students, movies, an exhibition, and orchestral music that Ravi Shankar himself had composed and orchestrated. On April 26, 2001, dancers, choreographers, and academics from all over the world gathered at the UNESCO offices in Paris to officially commence the centenary celebrations of Uday Shankar’s birth. The Golf Club Road in the Tollygunge neighbourhood of south Kolkata has been renamed Uday Shankar Sarani.

Awards

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