Indian dancing

THE REVIVAL OF INDIAN DANCING

Among those who have popularized Kathakali, Gopinath of Travancore must be placed in the front rank. Trained with Krishnan, Madhavan, and Haridas, under the tutelage of Kunjukurup and Narayan Nair, Gopinath evinced a rate sense of /a/a, or timing, from the earliest days of his novitiate. Learning his art from Cochinites, he was a victim of prejudice, being himself a Travancorean. But his luck turned when he partnered Ragini Devi, an American whom he trained himself. ,

Gopinath was amongst the first to lift Kathakali items from an entite ballet theme and to present them as solo numbers — a form of presentation much easier for the uninitiated city audiences to appreciate. His annual appearances at the Madras Music Academy and the Fine Art Society are events.

Recently, Gopinath, like Madhavan, has begun to introduce his own improvisations into the old technique. The danger here is that if the creators do not conform in the least to the traditional science the att is apt to become cheapened.

Finally, we come to Uday Shankar, well known in the West, perhaps better in America than in Europe. He started out as an art student under Sir William Rothenstein, but fate brought him under the influence of Pavlova, who took him as her partner for the Radha-Krishna number she had added to her repertoire.

To be a partner of the world-famed Pavlova was a splendid start for an unknown youth. From then Shankar went from strength to strength, taking as his partner Simkie, a French girl who became one of the best-known female dancers in India. While the classical technique is not unknown to him, he has always chosen to be what one may term a free-thinker in the realm of dancing. He has displayed no fondness for classicism, but believes rather in escaping conventional rigidness and in mixing the various styles and forms of dancing, both Eastern and Western.

Shankar has a number of fine creations to his credit, the most notable being his two ballets, The Rhythm of Life and Labour Versus Machinery. They are examples of his use of art to mirror contemporary problems; in other words, Shankar seems to subscribe to the Marxian belief that art must serve political and social propaganda.

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