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Detail Study Of Kathak, Nautch Girls, Nritta, Nritya, Different Gharana-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists

Module 12 Pioneers Of Kathak 1930-1950

Pioneers are those who show the path not attempted before. They lead us to light to the new ways of doing something. These are people with vision to fulfill a mission and they are given divine support by history and circumstances to do so. Thus, pioneers are people, ordinary in appearance but with special abilities and mind backed by hard work.

Once a form that was long forgotten and got known and established as Kathak, many stars of other forms, most notably Bharatanatyam and Kathakali did much to learn and promote Kathak and help it reach national acclaim. In this, Bharatanatyam trained Ram Gopal, Kathakali trained Uday Shankar and pioneers in films like Menaka and Sadhona Bose took this form further and can be called pioneers, in addition to the generation that followed their example.

It would not be wrong to call Uday Shankar a cult figure of the early part of the 20th century. He was a showman, a creator of magical spectacles and a dancer par excellence. He was not a trained dancer, so his movements flowed from the heart. He

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created the Indian ballet scene because nothing like it existed before. Originally a painter, on his museum visits to delve into books, Uday got fascinated with pictures of sculptures of Hindu gods and goddesses in varied poses. He began imitating the poses. Although unfamiliar with dance techniques, the images provided inspiration to translate into dance movement. On June 20, 1922 Uday performed dance for the first time. He generated rhythmic movements with swords and daggers and called it Sword Dance. The performance called for congratulations from King George V who watched it at the garden party organized by the League of Mercy. Ballerina Anna Pavlova who was planning to produce mini ballets on Indian themes met Uday Shankar on the suggestion of an Indian official N.C. Sen and the rest is history.1

He dropped painting to concentrate on dance. He choreographed Hindu Wedding based on colorful Rajasthani weddings and Krishna and Radha based on purely decorative movements for Pavlova’s troupe. Uday as Krishna and Pavlova as Radha first presented the item at Covent Garden, London. Uday toured Europe and USA with Pavlova for nine months. In 1924, he performed at British Empire Exhibition in Wimbledon in his first appearance after leaving Pavlova’s troupe. He went to Paris where shows were not forthcoming so he danced items like Sword Dance, Nautch, Hindu Dance and Water Carrier in cabarets and revues. His dance partners were Adelide and Soki, ex-members of Pavlova’s troupe. It was Frenchwoman pianist Simone Barbier (Simkie) who became his dance partner for the next 20 years. In 1930, Uday returned with Alice Bonner - Swiss

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painter and sculptor - to India, trained a few people and put together his troupe. His solos Shiva, Indra, Gandharva and Baiji had music by Timir Baran. His 1931 tour of France, 1932-33 tour of US and London program in April 1933 were a success, but the group disbanded on return to India.2

In 1938 he toured Europe and US with Zohra Mumtaz and her sister Uzra, Kathakali performer Madhavan, Brojobihari, Sisir Sovan, Nagen De and Ustad Allaudin Khan. During the 7 years of continuous travel, Uday Shankar and his troupe presented 889 shows averaging an astounding one show every three days. Back in India, he opened his dream Uday Shankar Cultural Centre at Almora and married his co-dancer Amala, but the dance centre folded up in 1944 and his close associates and partners Zohra and Simkie left him forever.

Between 1945 and 47, he made his famous film K alpana/ in Madras where he stayed till 1955. He became dean of dance at West Bengal State Academy of Dance, Drama and Music, Kolkata, in 1955. He choreographed Tagore’s Samanyashakti in ballet style in 1960 with music by his brother Ravi Shankar. He produced Ramleela, a shadow play he choreographed at Almora. In his second shadow play based on the life of Buddha, he used color slides.3

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, a number of dancers worked with Uday Shankar as his troupe members. In 1962-63, impresario Sol Hurok again got Uday touring in USA. Back in India, the Uday Shankar Cultural Centre was revived at Kolkata. His daughter

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Mamta and daughter-in-law Tanusree were initiated into dance at this centre. But he soon distanced himself from the centre and his family and was beset with health problems despite which he planned his celluloid fantasy Shankarscope. 4

Uday Shankar brought radical changes in theme, using mortal, flesh and blood characters in everyday situations and their compelling labour problems. Labour and Machinery was an ode to industrial workers of the world struggling for their rights. Rhythm of Life was another unusual production of the Almora centre. His film Kalpana projected his idea of nationalism, conveyed through India’s immense artistic heritage. Shankascope was a spectacle that transported the viewer into magical realms. Uday dared to be different even in the use of musical instruments for his dance. For the first time, he used over 150 Indian musical instruments of various types and innumerable percussion instruments. There were quite a few firsts in the arena of stagecraft and lighting. Each dance abounded in experimental light play in a manner that demonstrated genius. Quite a few stage devices that became stock-in-trade for later-day stage personalities were actually introduced by Uday Shankar. Today, Uday Shankar is talked about with reverence in terms of his creative choreography and path-breaking achievements.5

In Kathak, when we think of pioneers, the name Ram Gopal comes to mind. He created travelling dance companies the likes of which the world, especially Europe, had not seen although he gave credit for his inspiration to the other light of his times,

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Uday Shankar, whose example had preceded Ram’s by a decade.

Painters sketched him, sculptors chiselled little figurines of him in movement, the press across the world raved about his performances. They hailed him as “India’s answer to Nijinsky” in the earlier part of the 20th century. From London to New York, Hollywood to Japan, Ram Gopal was one of the earliest to put India on the world dance map. To Indian classical dancers from the flower-power generation of the ’70s, he was someone who achieved unimaginable heights for an Indian dancer. Ram Gopal was born in 1912 in Bangalore to a Rajput lawyer father and a Burmese mother. Despite parental opposition, he took up dance as a profession after he saw the palace dancers at the famous Mysore Dussehra celebrations as a child. Seeing his enthusiasm for dance, he was greatly patronised by the prince of Mysore. By the end of his teens, Ram was already the most sought-after dancer in the Mysore State. He went ahead to take lessons in Kathak from Guru Sohan Lal of the Jaipur gharana, who was settled in Bangalore. Alongside, he began visiting Kerala and training in Kathakali from Guru Kunju Kurup at Kalamandalam. He and Mrinalini Swaminathan (Sarabhai) took lessons in Bharatanatyam under legendary guru Meenakshisundaram Pillai. He took elements from each of these dance forms and created his own unique style, which became extremely popular with the western audiences as "Oriental Dance."6

Seeing one of his successful performances, the famous Russian

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dancer La Meri, who was touring south India, invited him to join her entourage in 1936. What would have otherwise been an exciting tour ended with an abrupt halt in Japan. La Meri could not digest the rave reviews and popularity Ram received and decided to dump him midway through the tour. Ram struggled his way back to Bangalore. Establishing his own dance company, he began experimenting with choreography. Several dancers like Tara Choudhry, Shevanti and Javanese dancer Retna Mohini joined his dance company. South India’s biggest music orchestra, The Saraswati Orchestra, with over 25 members, headed by M.S. Natarajan, provided music to Ram Gopal’s dance productions in those years. Invitations came from far and wide. His first dance tours to Europe began soon after. In London, Glasgow, Ireland and elsewhere, Ram stunned his audiences. Such was the importance given to him in London that he was invited to perform at the inauguration of the Indian section at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1947. In 1955, Ram was the first Indian dancer to perform at the South Bank Center. Kathak dancer Kumudini Lakhia was a part of this historic tour. In the mid-1950s, Ram had a brief stint in Hollywood. He played minor roles in movies like The Purple Plain and William Dieterle's Elephant Walk for which he also choreographed the dance sequences. He eventually settled down in London.7

The latter part of 1947 and beginning of 1948 saw Gopal dancing extensively in London and touring the UK. His 4-week season at London’s Prince’s Theatre was sold out every night. Gopal tailored his programs to western audiences by

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introducing and explaining each dance before its performance. Some of his popular dances were setting Sun and Garuda plus many Bharatanatyam items. He brought dancers trained in Manipuri from India who performed Rangapuja (blessing the stage) and Surya Puja (offering to the sun). All items were short, varied with solos, some duets and group choreography. Gopal cherished a vision of east-west collaboration in dance since the days of his first successful performances in 1939 in Britain. Gopal worked closely with Harlequin Ballet Company and became one of their patrons. He taught the company Indian folk dances and a few of the dancers joined him for classes. Despite many efforts to establish a school of classical Indian dancing in London, Ram Gopal did not succeed. He was more a performer than a teacher. Gopal’s desire for an east- west fusion came to fruition when he and ballerina Alicia Markhova presented duet Radha-Krishna as part of a complete dance program in 1960. Residual colonialism continued to reveal itself with his struggles for support and funding. Despite difficulties, his work was to set the scene for further developments in Indian dance education and performance in Britain in the 1970s and 80s.8

Ram spent his final days in an old age nursing home in London. He donated a few of his costumes, including the iconic The Eagle Dance piece, to the Victoria and Albert museum. Made of soft leather and covered in pure gold leaf, this costume is a sight to behold. It is said that Ram had a special case designed to carry each of the parts of this costume separately when he went on international tours. Several images of Ram seen often

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ostentatiously dressed, shot by legendary photographers like George Hurrell, Houston Rogers and Cecil Beaton, continue to capture public imagination. A portrait of his is housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Ram wrote his autobiography Rhythm in the Heavens in the early 1950s. He was also a subject of several early books on Indian dance. All of them are out of print and out of circulation today.9

Leila Roy Sokhey was born to an English mother and a Bengali father. Those days, dancing was not considered respectable but her husband Col. Sokhey was supportive. In London, Leila Sokhey met Pavlova and complained that though she had been very keen on learning dancing in India she could not make any headway. Pavlova immediately assigned Algeranoff to teach Leila Sokhey, who was none other than Madame Menaka, a name she assumed when she returned to India and took to dance full time and created a school in Bombay. She adopted Damayanti Joshi and groomed her into a fine dancer. Madame Menaka learnt Kathak from Sitaram Mishra, Ram Dutt and Lachchu Maharaj and created her own style of choreography adapting its techniques for dramatic purposes. Along with her knowledge of other dance forms in the west and around the world, she created solos as well as dance dramas based on traditional forms.

Leila established her own dance troupe in 1934 and started dance classes at her residence. That same year, she staged her first dance drama, Krishna Leela, at the Opera House in Bombay. During her short but packed dance career, other

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significant new dance dramas that she choreographed and staged were Deva Vijaya Nritya (1935), Menaka Lasyam (1938) and Kaliamardan and Malavikagnimitram (1939). She discarded traditional Kathak lyrics and took the help of trained musicians to create orchestral ensembles, a break from the traditional way Indian music was played. Thus her productions were a clever merger of traditionalism and innovation.10

After founding the Menaka Indian Ballet Company, Leila became known as Madame Menaka. Taking advantage of a brief official visit to Geneva, Sokhey launched his wife’s company on a spectacular Indian dance tour. Menaka and her troupe of dancers and musicians toured India and Europe for two years from 1936 January. At Berlin Olympics in July 1936, Menaka and her group participated in the Dance Olympiad for two days and for their Deva Vijay Nritya on the second day, the first three prizes were won by Menaka, Ram Narayan and Gourishankar. This international recognition for Kathak helped boost the popularity of the dance form. Menaka was invited to the nascent movie industry, choreographing black-and-white, silent movie productions in Germany and England.

Sadhona Bose was a contemporary of Uday Shankar. A classically trained dancer (Kathak dance under Taraknath Bagchi and Manipuri under Guru Senarik Rajkumar) Sadhona was an actress but dancer in the first place and all her film successes were in dancing roles. She even sang her own songs in some of her films including her first Alibaba. An English version of her best-known film, Raj Nartaki, was distributed in the USA as

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Court Dancer. She was so popular as a glamorous heroine of the silver screen in the 1930s and 1940s that her face appeared for Otene snow to enhance its brand value in the market during interwar years. With film offers becoming too infrequent, she formed a dance troupe and made all India tours with plays like Wither now, Hunger and others and met with success. Her battle with the bottle brought her down and after her husband’s death, she lived in penury till she got appointed as dance trainer in Calcutta's Star Theatre, courtesy Timir Baran.

Zohra Sehgal was born into a Sunni Muslim Rohilla Pathan family of Rampur, Uttar Pradesh in April 1912. Zohra was a tomboy, who enjoyed climbing trees and playing games. In her teens, she saw Uday Shankar perform in Dehra Dun and that acted as the turning point of her life. She travelled across India, West Asia and Europe by car with an uncle who was close to her. On her return, a burqa-clad Zohra went to Queen Mary's Girls College, Lahore, a place of higher learning for daughters of aristocratic families. She was the first Indian woman to learn ballet at renowned dancer Mary Wigman's ballet school in Dresden, Germany. Zohra and her sister Uzra joined Uday Shankar's dance troupe and travelled to Japan, West Asia, Europe and America. During this time, she met Kameshwar Sehgal and the couple got married. They first worked in Uday Shankar's dance institute at Almora. When it shut down, they migrated to Lahore and founded their own dance institute. However, due to growing communal tension prior to the Partition of India, they moved to Bombay where Zohra worked as an actress in Indian People’s Theatre Association and

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Prithviraj Kapoor’s theatre for 14 years. Zohra acted on the stage in different parts of India, including plays performed for jails inmates. After her husband's suicide in 1959, Zohra moved to Delhi and became director of the newly founded Natya Academy. She then moved to London on a drama scholarship in 1962. Here she met Ram Gopal and from 1963, worked as a teacher at his school in Chelsea, during the short period of its existence. She has acted in films The Courtesans of Bombay, The Jewel in the Crown, The Raj Quartet, Tandoori Nights, My Beautiful Launderette, Bhaji on the Beach, Bend it like Beckham, etc. In India, she became well-known after she appeared in the TV series Mullah Naseeruddin. She appeared in numerous Bollywood films as a character actress in a career span of over 60 years. After returning to India in the mid 1990s, she added poetry reading performances to her presentations. In 1993, acclaimed play Ek Thi Nani was staged in Lahore for the first time featuring Zohra and her sister Uzra Butt. Its English version A Granny for All Seasons was held at UCLA in 2001. From 1996 she appeared frequently in high budget Hindi movies. Zohra lived to a ripe old age of 102. In 2012, her daughter Kiran Sehgal wrote Zohra’s biography titled Zohra Sehgal: Fatty.

Sitara Devi represented a lost age when Kathak used to be performed for the whole night. She trained under her father Sukhdev Maharaj (Banaras gharana) and Lucknow gharana and combined both elements in her dance. Her father decided to give religious inputs to the content, which was quite different from the content used by the nautch girls. He opened a dance

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school in Varanasi and taught Kathak to his daughters, sons and other children. By the time Sitara had turned ten, she was giving solo performances. When she was 11, the family moved to Bombay. There she performed at Atiya Begum Palace before a select audience, which included Tagore. Impressed, Tagore invited her to give a special performance in Tata Palace of the Tata Group where Sitara performed Kathak, with all its nuances for three hours. She was 16 years old. Tagore described her as Nritya Samragini, meaning the empress of dance, after watching her performance. Sitara Devi performed dance sequences in Hindi movies since she was 12, making a debut in Usha Haran (1940), Nagina (1951), Roti, Vatan (1954), Anjali (1957). In Mother India (1957), she performed a Holi dance dressed as a boy. After that, she stopped performing dances in movies to concentrate on Kathak. She taught Kathak to many Bollywood celebrities like Madhubala, Rekha, Mala Sinha and Kajol. In her choreographies, she drew from the treasure trove of themes, poetry and choreography collected by her father and drew inspiration from the environment around her. Her family had devoted their life for four generations to development of Kathak. During the lifetime of her father Kathak regained its lost glory and emerged as an important pillar of Indian dancing. Sitara continued the tradition, and contributed immensely to the development and popularity of this art form during her career spanning more than six decades. The ‘Kathak Queen’ passed away aged 94 on November 25, 2014.11

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