CHAPTER 7

UDAY SHANKAR STYLE OF CREATIVE DANCE –

THE FORM AND CONTENT

The revolution that brought to Indian dance, was both in form and content. According to Shankar, “From the very beginning of my artistic career, I never wanted to go on with mere repetitions, but always tried to produce something new and exclusive”.1 “I found that the older conception of our Indian dances have lost essential truths and their interpretation has become mechanical….my innovation…lay in that I created an altogether new technique’.2 To Uday Shankar, creativity meant to do something that had “not been done yet”. “My dance”, he said, “I created. I got inspired by music sometimes, by movement in actual life sometimes”. 3

Most information sites on the internet hail Uday Shankar as a classical dancer and choreographer of the 1930s or an architect of modern dance. But according to him, he cared to be classified as neither. “I had seen so much classical ballet in Europe it was shocking for me when I first saw Modern Dance. I felt it was something being done just for the sake of doing something new. Sorry, Modern Dance does not touch me. In the composition, in the way the theme, if any, is built up, I did not find anything modern. I found it more human, more natural.

1 Uday Shankar, “My Love for Dance,” Souvenir of Shankarscope (1970)

2 Ibid

3 Mohan Khokar, His Dance His Life – A Portrait of Uday Shankar (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983), 171

But I did not learn or derive anything from it. Now it is a fashion to use the word choreography in . But I learnt this more from the Pavlova company than from anywhere else. Another thing I could learn from the West is how to compose and give ever-changing patterns of the body covering space. This I watched carefully in their ballet and then tried to see how I could use all that in my dances and ballets.”4

Therefore, it is with Uday Shankar that India witnessed the advent of the creative dance form in India – unrestricted by the constrictions of the Natya Shastra. This researcher would also like to argue that the concept of a ballet was introduced by Uday Shankar in the Indian performing arts scenario. Kathakali was perhaps the only dance form that was used as a medium to narrate various tales of mythology as well as scenes from the ancient

Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata by multiple dancers, through the interplay of different characters. However, this could not be categorized either under creative dance or ballet as Kathakali too was restricted in nature, given that it is a classical dance form with its own set of rigid fundamentals. Nor did the dance form include group dances to be a part of the narrative to take the story ahead. The use of stage space on a professional platform in an auditorium with a number of dancers in various formations, which is an important aspect of ballet, was brought in the Indian dance form by Uday Shankar.

Although there is a lot of contention on whether Shankar’s compositions can be termed as a ballet,5 nonetheless, Uday Shankar termed some of his slightly longer items as

4 Mohan Khokar, His Dance His Life – A Portrait of Uday Shankar (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983), 171

5 Joan L. Erdman, “Who Remembers Uday Shankar?” accessed July 10, 2017, url: https://mm- gold.azureedge.net/new_site/mukto-mona/Articles/jaffor/uday_shanka2.html ballets. Lexically the term ballet includes a theatrical dance characterized by graceful, balanced movements with fully extended limbs, initiated from a restricted set of body positions; a theatrical work incorporating ballet dancing, music, and scenery to tell a story or convey a thematic atmosphere; or a company of dancers,6 Shankar’s form encompassed them all, except the technique of the ballet form, which he replaced with his own creative style or form. So, there should not be any doubt in his contribution to the ballet form in Indian dance.

The other ways that Shankar revolutionized the Indian dance form, was that he moved away from the traditional use of mudras and facial expressions to body expression. He firmly believed that body expression should exceed the importance of facial expression and mudras. In one of his interviews he states, “I have not adopted mudras in my dance or dance dramas unless it is very necessary. Let me tell you: when a dance or dance drama is going on, perhaps vigorously with much feeling, and the dancer suddenly stops and starts ‘talking’ with mudras, it breaks. I tell you, it breaks for me the continuity…I like to show what I want to show with the body, with the body in emotion. For instance, when saying ‘I feel angry’ the dancer flutters his hands and takes leaps. Why not just show the anger? When the body is capable of showing anger, why not let it do that? I try to avoid mudras as much as possible. Mudras are beautiful and nice, but in my kind of dancing, I go for movement of the whole body to express what I want, and with no exaggeration.”7 According his Ballet Master, Shanti Bose, there was another reason for this. Dada8 - as he was addressed by those near to him, as well as his

6 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ballet (Retrieved on July 11, 2017)

7 Mohan Khokar, His Dance His Life – A Portrait of Uday Shankar (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983), 167

8 Dada – In the , it is a way of addressing an older brother or someone who deserves respect

colleagues – used to say that mudras and facial expression would be visible only to those among the audience, who were seated in the first few rows. But in order to capture and enthrall the audience even in the last row, body expression was a must. Uday Shankar used to repeatedly tell his dancers that those sitting in the last few rows were his main audience, for they had spent whatever little they could afford from their meager income to come and watch him perform.

But having said that, it must be noted that for Kartikeya, which was composed in Kathakali, by Guru Shankaran Nambudri, for Uday Shankar, the usage of mudras was pronounced. Shanti Bose opines that his own background in Kathakali, probably helped him achieve perfection in terms of the mudras used, when he was taught the item by Uday Shankar, and performed it under Uday Shankar’s aegis and subsequently.

But apart from this one dance, the usage of mudras was very limited in Uday

Shankar’s style. A huge unexplored gap stems from the fact that if Uday Shankar did not depend too much on the Natya Shastra, then, what was the basis of his dance form? Or was it a go as you like style without any basic grammar to provide the foundation for its construction?

It may be argued, that the very basis of the word creative defies limitation. But while it defies limitation, does it not have a foundation? Does creative writing not have a basis in the basics of the structure of language? Does creativity and innovation in business not have a basis in any management guidelines or theories, does cinematic creativity not stem from a deep-rooted understanding of the tools and techniques of the art? Similarly, Uday Shankar’s form, although a creative form, did have its basics, on which the style was founded on and based on. He developed this slowly as he matured and by the time Almora was in place, these techniques were well in place and taught in the general class. This was brought forth at the discussions at the Uday Shankar Shatabdi Samaroh held between 2001 - 2002, organized across India in the cities of New Delhi, Mumbai, and , by Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi.

This researcher was fortunate enough to participate as a performer as well as a presenter in the celebrations held in New Delhi in 2001.

Image 107: Cover of the souvenir of the centenary celebrations held in New Delhi in 2001. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

Image 108: A page from the above souvenir. Shanti Bose presented Kartikeya and together with his troupe, Nrityangan, recreated Samanya Kshati. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

The first basic attribute of the form was posture. According to Uday Shankar, the first thing that a dancer must know is how to stand. A slouching posture can never portray the beauty of a movement. Shanti Bose recollects the basic tenets of “chin up, chest out, stomach in” that had become a mantra for them when training in the style.

Image 109: Shanti Bose demonstrating the basic “chin up, chest out, stomach in” posture at the centenary celebrations in Kolkata in 2002. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

The next step was to prepare the body for dance. This preparation was necessary to help the dancer attain control over his body movements. Only once the dancer had achieved this control, could he present his dance with apparent ease and simplicity. For this purpose, Uday Shankar developed a whole series of exercises which would, with practice, enable the body move in easy, fluid movements.

The exercises created by Uday Shankar involved exercising the limbs and various joints of the body. These exercises were the ones he taught at the General Class at

Almora. Every student, no matter what subject he or she was pursuing at the Centre, as well as the troupe members attended this class. These were also the exercises that he taught in the

General Classes that he conducted at the Academy of Dance Drama and Music, while he was the Dean at the Academy. Bose recollects that he learnt them from Uday Shankar during their preparations for the tour of Canada, USA, and Europe in 1962.

Uday Shankar placed tremendous importance on these exercises. So much so, that in his application for a Nehru Fellowship on February 23, 1976, he wrote,

“I found out with my experiences of the past, that the root of all dances of the world

is the body and the mind and the past cultural heritage of the nations…I worked out

a method of my own. This is to prepare the mind and the body and to make the body

an effective instrument before taking up any kind of dance of the world…It starts

with walking – just walking, and through this method of mine, some problems are

created, and then one starts feeling that he has never known his body before. As he

goes on, after few months, he realizes how wonderful his body is, and (that) this can

create thousands of patterns, and for the first time he starts to know that he has limbs

which are beautiful when they work with the mind.”9

9 Mohan Khokar, His Dance His Life – A Portrait of Uday Shankar (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983), 143 - 144

According to Uday Shankar, this method of his, not only helped to create a sense of rhythm, but also a sense of discipline, concentration, alertness, a sense of space, gave way to imagination, and developed a sense of group feeling, and had a host of other positive benefits.

The next tenet that Uday Shankar advocated was that every movement has a position where the movement begins and a position where it ends. Only when a dancer knows the beginning and ending position of every movement, can he or she replicate it any number of times and perform it exactly the same way every time. This implies that when the dancer is performing, he or she is completely aware of what they are doing, and can also teach the movement perfectly to other dancers or students.

Symmetry in movement was another principle of paramount importance in

Uday Shankar’s style. A movement, according to him, could never look beautiful until and unless both the left and the right side of the movements were symmetrical − mirror images of each other. This symmetry of form was evident not only in the movements that he created, but also in his compositions and his choreography in terms of usage of stage and creating patterns on stage. It was also evident in the number of dancers that he used and the way he positioned them on stage. This principle of symmetry is also apparent and evident in his film Kalpana.

Another principle which Uday Shankar always abided by while choreographing his dances, was the golden rule that dance and melody should be in absolute synchronization.

The body should perform smaller movements on the lower notes of the music. But when the notes hit a high pitch or a crescendo, the movements should also become bigger and position accordingly. The times when the music was available before the dance had been composed, like in the case of many dances of Prakriti Ananda, where Tagore’s songs were already present, dances were composed by following the notes of the music, while bearing in mind the spirit of the song. But in instances where the music was composed after the dance, the music composers had quite a trying time trying to match Uday Shankar’s movements and the thought that he had in his mind while composing the dance. They were often compelled to write and rewrite the music till he was satisfied that the final music was what he exactly had in mind. Only those who have worked in close proximity to Uday Shankar will realize the amount of work that had to be put in to please him in terms of perfection, recollects Bose.

Work was Shankar’s God. According to Uday Shankar in an interview with

Shambhu Mitra, this work ethic was something he got inspired while working with Pavlova’s troupe.10 Bose says that he joined Uday Shankar when the maestro was in his sixtieth year. But the kind of hard work that he was capable of putting in even then, could put any younger man to shame. He appreciated anyone who worked with sincerity and strove towards perfection.

While toiling in their efforts to perfect the movements, they had to often wring out their perspiration-soaked clothes. Uday Shankar, both Sunanda Bose and Shanti Bose recollect, would tell them, “I am making you work so hard because I need a perfect production. But the perfection that you have gained as a dancer belongs to you and you alone. That is entirely your gain. No one can ever take this perfection away from you.” He would motivate them by saying,

“Give more, give more…the more you give, the more you shall receive.”

10 An interview of Uday Shankar by Shambhu Mitra on DD Bharati, accessed April 28, 2019, url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHq-uBio5vE&t=14s

Although in terms of choreography, Uday Shankar always said that while the dancer should let the melody dictate the flow of movements, nonetheless, while arranging the sequence of movements in an item, he used to always tell his dancers, that while choreographing, it was necessary to ensure that smaller movements preceded the bigger and bolder ones. Otherwise the momentum created by these bolder movements would be lost. This principle was necessary while choreographing in order to build up an item to a climax.

He also emphasized that each movement should be “beautiful, powerful and above all simple.” But this power did not necessarily imply that the dancer had to stamp his or her feet very hard on the floor. This was again contrary to most of the classical dance forms of

India like Odissi, Kathak and Bharatnatyam, to name a few. According to Shankar, power was to be depicted through the execution of the movement − the way the dancer expressed the movement through his body language. It had to be beautiful naturally, but in an uncomplicated way an thereby actually reflected the tremendous expertise and control of the dancer. This beauty did not necessarily involve the use of excessive mudras or the use of intricate footwork.

Its simplicity was its beauty.

Uday Shankar would also say that one has to master the art of knowing how much to give in order to leave the audience hankering for more. This was because he believed that “What you want to say, you must say in as short a time as possible. I do not want to give the impression that I am showing off what I can do. The number should be short, so the audience does not get bored. The result is that before my audience really get to know what I am trying to do, my piece is finished. The image lingers in their mind. People may like some long dances, such as compositions in the classical tradition, but their mind is at times invaded by other thoughts…In my dances and ballets, something keeps happening all the time in quick succession to sharply engage the mind of the beholders.”11

According to him, if an item is too long then the focus of the audience shifts from the art or the performance to the artist or the performer. The audience then attempts to dissect and look for negative aspects in the performer instead of being engrossed by the performance.

Shankar was a complete showman. So naturally, his teachings included the various aspects of stagecraft, costume and lighting as well. It was from Uday Shankar, Bose recollects that he learnt that paagdis too speak a language of their own. The most primary being that they identify the region where the person belongs to. The way of tying a paagdi varies from state to state in India. Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, all tie their head garb in different styles.

Moreover, another distinction within this regional distinction is the distinction of professional and economic classes. The way a farmer ties his paagdi, is different from the way a nobleman, or a trader would tie his. Similarly, with respect to the dhoti too, different regions and classes could be identified by the way a person was wearing the garment. So too was the case with the donning of sarees. Not only could the region be region be identified, but so could classes of the women who were wearing them. These close observations were reflected in the various costumes that were used for our different items and ballets.

11 Mohan Khokar, His Dance His Life – A Portrait of Uday Shankar (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983), 168

The use of light effects has been touched upon intermittently throughout this study, but while talking of the perfectionist that he was, it will be unfair not to elaborate how the dancers were supposed to use the lights. The lights did not follow the dancers. The lights were fixed on stands which were placed in prefixed positions. During the rehearsals, the dancers had to position themselves and mark their positions in order to ensure that they not only maintained their distances accurately, but were also aligned to the lights as required for different sequences. But this could vary from stage to stage and so, they used to perform on a sheet that used to be laid out on stage before every performance. The positions used to be marked on this sheet, so that even if the size of the stage size differed during our tours, the dancers would always perform in their designated positions.

However, given that neither the evolution of the form nor the form itself, is the scope for this study and will require an audio-visual media, the researcher will not elaborate on it any further, except to mention that as far as the form was concerned, while the basics remained the same, it evolved with Uday Shankar’s maturity as an artist and creator.

Image 110: Shanti Bose and Amala Shankar engaged in a discussion on the evolution of a few of Uday Shankar’s movements at Uday Shankar’s centenary celebrations in Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi in 2001. Apart from the two central figures, on stage can also be seen on the extreme left, , and on the right at the podium, noted dance critic and author, Sunil Kothari and the Akademi Secretary, Jayant Kastur. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

In terms of content, Uday Shankar said that, “I wanted to show that there was more in life than momentary satisfaction of a craving towards beauty”. The role of dance therefore was much more than just ‘a thing of beauty’12. This is best evidenced not only through his compositions that were a commentary on the socio-political world around him, as has been evident in the opening scroll of his film, Kalpana, which is provided earlier in this thesis.

Other items like the ‘Young Father’, which recollects Bose is an earlier composition, but he had performed during the Assam tour, but is not noted down anywhere.

This item used to depict a young father unable to manage a wailing baby. He would try everything from feeding to trying to put the baby to sleep, crooning to the baby, walking it,

12 From Book 1 of Endymion, by John Keats. The excerpt is often titled by the first line ‘A thing of Beauty’. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44469/endymion-56d2239287ca5 (Accessed on July 12, 2019) changing it, but he was helpless in managing the baby. The twist in the tale was that the young father used to wear a Nehru hat and a Jawahar coat, and entered the stage with the national flag.

This was Uday Shankar’s critique of India’s political leadership’s handling of the various challenges faced by India during its early years of independence.

In the Haripura session of the Congress in 1938, the Congress had stated that all the states are integral parts of India and that complete freedom or purna swaraj for them was independence for the whole of India, and that independent India’s unity and integrity must be maintained. Unfortunately, a few states had refused to be a part of the Indian entity – namely

– Travancore, Jodhpur, Bhopal, Hyderabad and Junagadh13. The tensions in Kashmir also added fuel to the fire. Bose recollects that the item used to be performed by N.K.

Shivashankaran, before him, and he used to be in the costume as described above. But after criticism in the media regarding this blatant portrayal, and also in deference to Nehru, post his demise, when Bose enacted the item, in the mid-1960s, it was enacted without the Nehru hat and the flag. Therefore, the novelty that Uday Shankar brought in terms of content to the art form, and the dauntless way in which he presented his critiques, cannot be denied at any level.

The following chapter, which discusses the impact of the maestro’s style, also showcases in the first few paragraphs, the diversity of content in Shankar’s art form.

13 https://indianexpress.com/article/research/five-states-that-refused-to-join-india-after-independence/ (retrieved April 25, 2019)