Uday Shankar
Uday Shankar was the dancer-choreographer who essentially invented a modern, fusion Indian dance idiom — blending classical Indian, folk and tribal movement with European stagecraft he'd studied at London's Royal College of Art — and toured it through Europe and the US with his own family company through the 1930s. His youngest brother Ravi was a dancer in that company from age ten; it was Uday who, in 1935, brought sarod guru Allauddin Khan aboard as the troupe's soloist, setting up the introduction that would eventually turn Ravi from dancer to disciple. Uday's own artistic direction owed less to any single named music teacher than to the broader ferment he moved through — Bengal's arts revival, his father's diplomatic travels, and above all his catalytic 1923 partnership with ballerina Anna Pavlova, who invited him to co-choreograph the ballets "Radha-Krishna" and "A Hindu Wedding" — so no comparable teacher-succession chain is charted here; the record is left as an honest headwater.
we haven’t charted Uday Shankar yet
this stretch of the river isn’t mapped. we trace the watershed one artist at a time — and we’re always heading further upstream.