Indian dancing

INDIAN DANCING

Recently Shankar attempted to present his dances through the medium of the film, but, not being well versed in this technique, his first film venture Ka/pana, potttaying an artist’s Utopia, fell between the two stools of choreographic and filmic representation, satisfying neither dance lovers nor film-fans.

Shankat’s dance centre at Almora was disbanded for various reasons. There are many difficulties in keeping such a place going in India. There is, however, no doubt that Uday Shankar is assured a prominent position in the history of the renaissance of Indian dancing because he belongs to that small band of men and women who have made the art known and loved in the East as well as the West.

Among the revivalists may be mentioned Rabindranath Tagote. He did much to encourage Indian dancing, but the dance-dramas he composed emphasized the lyrics more than the dancing, which thus became subservient to the singing. At his school movements absolutely free from stylization wete introduced. The dancer was to move his or her limbs exactly as he or she liked, so long as the actions were consonant with the meaning of the lyrics sung.

In a fleeting survey such as the present, it has been possible to mention only a few of the pioneers who have helped to revive the glory of Indian dancing. An examination now of the general state of affairs in the dance world of India is not out of place.

Social ostracism of the artist, due to the peculiar prejudice of the bourgeoisie, has gradually disappeared, because so many of the popular artists themselves have come from families considered ‘respectable’. Nevertheless, if the artist is no longer looked upon as an outright freak, he is still treated as a plaything, a tonic for jaded nerves. As in Paris, New York, Berlin or London, so also in Delhi, Lucknow, Bombay, and the other big cities of India, the aftist is regarded as an exotic creature to be gazed at curiously and with whom to beguile an hour of boredom.

Despite all the lionizing, reserved, incidentally, only for the famous and the notorious, the artist still stands isolated from the rest of the world.

A revival of dancing has certainly begun; but national con-

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