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Abstract
Uday Shankar, a dancer who spent a great deal of his life outside India, improvised new forms of dance and music that he designated as representing Indian culture. Launching his career in Europe and the United States, Shankar adopted his ideas to the availability of local resources including musicians, instruments and set and lighting design. Shankar's innovations in set design, music, choreography and even film directing establish him as a modernist in the 1930s–1940s. Shankar's role in creating new forms of music, especially while he was abroad, led to a particular conflict in his relationship to previously defined categories of national identity. This conflict resulted from Shankar's attempt to define Indian culture in a manner that fell outside officially sanctioned terms of ‘Indian tradition’ and ‘Indian culture’ – as understood in India, as well as abroad.
Notes
1. Dirlik, Postcolonial Aura, 110–13.
2. Bakhle, Two Men and Music.
3. Sarada, Kalakshetra Rukmini Devi, 5.
4. Balasaraswati, ‘Bala on Bharatanatyam’, 14.
5. Erdman, ‘Who Should Speak for the Performing Arts?; Chaudhuri, ‘Aspects of Documentation and Mass Media’, 234–7.
6. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 27–9; Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 23–5.
7. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 34; Khokar, His Dance, His life, 27.
8. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 36.
9. Attributed to Edward Rothenstein in an interview with Uday Shankar. Quoted in Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 25.
10. Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 25.
11. Ibid.
12. Tagore, Jorasankor Dhare, 101: letter of Abanindranath to Havell, 2.3.1911 in U. Dasgupta, ‘Letters’, 216. rev. ed. in Bengal (Quinquennial report 1902), 1897/8–1902/3, 32; Quoted in Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850–1922, 284.
13. Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 29.
14. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 49.
15. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 97.
16. Farrell, Indian Music and the West, 165.
17. Attributed to ‘The Times’, date unknown; Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 30.
18. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 68.
19. Review excerpt, La Tribune de Genève, October 18, 1929; Uday Shankar personal effects, in Ananda Shankar Collection; Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 72.
20. Brett, ‘Eros and Orientalism in Britten's Operas’, 236.
21. Plates XI–XVI in Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 78–9.
22. Ibid., 125.
23. Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 41.
24. Nandikesvara, Mirror of Gesture.
25. Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 42.
26. ‘Each arm or semi-circle with its 180° has for its basic positions two right angles, position one and position two. Secondary positions are those between the two right angles, that is, at 22 degrees in the arc. All other positions are related to these in fractions of right angles.’ T. Paremeshvaran Potty, quoted in Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 177.
27. Boner, Principles of Composition of Hindu Sculpture, 38–49.
28. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 96.
29. Ibid., 97–8.
30. Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 51.
31. Guha-Thakurta, ‘Recovering the Nation's Art’, 79.
32. Ibid.
33. Khokar, His Dance, His Life, 51.
34. Kothari and Khokar, Uday Shankar, 8.
35. Letter from Rabindranath Tagore, Shantiniketan, 1933. In Banerji, Uday Shankar and His Art, 62–3.
36. Letter from R. Tagore. In Khokar, His Dance, his Life, 25.
37. Letter from R. Tagore. In Banerji, Uday Shankar and His Art, 62–3.
38. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 100–1.
39. Ibid., 161.
40. Gaston, Bharata Natyam: From Temple to Theatre.
41. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 152–84.
42. Uday Shankar, ‘To the Artist’, Amritsar Pratikar Bazaar 71 (1956): 93–6; In Ibid., 175.
43. Thakur, Bhārat Śilpa (Indian art). Cited by Guha-Thakurta, ‘Recovering the Nation's Art’, 79.
44. Nehru, Discovery of India, 488, 490.
45. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 73.
46. Ibid., 76.
47. Shankar and Company, Indian Music.
48. Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 140–1.
49. Shankar, My Music, My Life, 65.
50. The diary is reproduced in its entirety within Abrahams, ‘Life and Art of Uday Shankar’, 262–6.
51. Bor et al., The Raga Guide.
52. Cited in Les Hindous by F. Baltazard Solvyns (vol. 2, Paris, 1810), reproduced in Hardgrave and Slavek, Musical Instruments of North India. I gratefully acknowledge Joep Bor for directing me to this source.
53. Bor et al., The Raga Guide.
54. Malm, Music Cultures of the Pacific, the Near East, and Asia, 57.
55. Ibid.
56. Abanindranath described his own conception of the artist, and of himself: ‘Aesthetic sensibility, intense thought and emotion, a discerning taste, … singleminded dedication, self-control, a deep attachment to one's country, and skills in drawing and painting – only through such an aggregation of numerous qualities is an artist made’. Guha-Thakurta, ‘Recovering the Nation's Art’, 88.
57. Erdman, ‘Who Should Speak for the Performing Arts?’, 253.