Dance
Contemporary Dance
Much like the explosion of western modern dance at the turn of the twentieth century, contemporary dance in India is at a turning point. Not bound by codified texts and exact movements, contemporary dance is defined loosely.
It is not classical dance. It is not bollywood dance. It is not folk dance. It is not martial arts. It can be influenced by any or all of these, as well as movements and traditions from other cultures and sources.
Uday Shankar is often considered the father of modern dance in India; influenced by the classical forms, he created a rich dance vocabulary in creative movement and toured the west in the early 1930s and 1940s; performing at Covent Garden in London with the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in 19241 (his younger brother, musician Ravi Shankar, learned dance and music while touring with the troupe, and his son, musician Ananda Shankar, later composed several music scores for contemporary dance).
While Shankar was exploring modern dance, Ram Gopal (of Indian and Burmese descent) was taking classical dance to the West. In 1938 he debuted in New York at the 46th Street Theatre, a year later performing at London’s Aldwych Theatre.2 He was reviewed and praised by the esteemed New York Times dance critic John Martin, and represented India at the New York Golden Anniversary International Dance Festival at City Center in 1948, the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 1954 and the Edinburgh Festival in 1956.3 He collaborated with several western dancers including La Meri (American dancer who pioneered the study of ethnic movement in the 1920s) and the British ballerina Alicia Markova.4
In the 1920s, in India, Rabindranath Tagore (Asia’s first Nobel Laureate) began to compose dance-dramas in West Bengal, using movements from other Indian states such as Manipur, Kerala and Tripura, and going beyond conventional stories to embrace modern concepts as well.5 Meanwhile, in the United States, Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis were creating dances based on their ideas of the Orient, and their Indian renditions were performed throughout the world, including major cities in India.6 Interestingly, Ted Shawn’s first present to St. Denis, was a book of poetry by Tagore.7
Today in India, companies such as the Daksha Seth Company, Nrityagram, Natya Stem, Tanusree Shankar Dance Company and Mamata Shankar Ballet Troupe, perform, train, and push the boundaries of contemporary dance across classical, martial, and folk forms. Dancers such as Chandralekha, Mallika Sarabhai, Mallika Sarrukai, Chitra Visweswaran and Kumudini Lakhia have contributed to exploration and innovation within their respective styles of dance - in both the movements and ideas expressed.
Abroad, there is an equally burgeoning scene in contemporary dance. Shobhana Jeyasingh, Akram Khan, Angika, Mavin Khoo, Tehreema Mitha, Rajika Puri, Daniel Phoenix Singh and the Post-Natyam Collective are but a few names promoting distinctive flavors of contemporary dance.
1.Id. at 31; Sunil Kothari, Uday Shankar: An Appreciation, Narthaki Online, available at, here.
2. Ashish Mohan Khokar, Obi-Tribute: Ram Gopal, Narthaki Online, available at, here.
3.Jack Anderson, Ram Gopal, Dancer who Opened Western Eyes to India, Dies, NY Dancewear Company, available here.
4. Id.; Nancy Lee Ruyter, La Meri and the World of Dance, available here.
5. Bose at 110-11..
6. Nancy Reynolds and Malcolm McCormick, No Fixed Points, at 25-26 (2003); Kothari at 32.
7. Reynolds and McCormick at 25.
