Our Forum: Uday Shankar

Our Forum

UDAY SHANKAR

To THE EDITOR,

Triveni, Madras

Sir,

In 1933, after Uday Shankar’s visit to Madras, Triveni published a criticism of his art from the point of view of Bharata and the traditional dance by the present writer, under the pseudonym’ Ganadasa.’ This criticism was, regrettably enough, made use of to discredit Uday Shankar by interested persons who sometimes exceeded the limits of that criticism in their propaganda against him,–a development which if it had been foreseen, might have induced the writer to keep his opinion to himself instead of publishing it.

That criticism related exclusively to Shankar’s performance of 1933,–a period when the artist did not command the materials that he commands now. It was then contended that his art was exotic, that it had some contacts with classical sculpture, but few with classical dance as outlined by Bharata and the living dance traditions derived from the classical system. On behalf of Shankar it was urged that he was free to abandon the traditions and Sastra and evolve an art of his own, which would not be the less classical and less Indian on that account. Indeed, some claimed that his glory consisted in his rejection of the traditions.

Uday Shankar however has repudiated these defences by a course of discipline in Kathakali under an eminent master from Kerala,–an act of courage that reveals the true artist that he is. Critics of tradition, let us hope, would disown Uday Shankar now, because he has succumbed to its blandishments instead of creating an art of his own. Let us hope also that these good people would delight the world and themselves by reviving that unfortunate art which they wanted Uday Shankar to create.

Since, Uday Shankar has been learning and practising his 1935 dance compositions have little in common with his attempts of 1933. Not only has he outgrown the greater part of his imperfections, but intimacy with tradition has taught him to express himself with beauty and force. That Kathakali is responsible for the magnificent tableau at the beginning of his Siva-Parvati duet with its many felicities of attitude and raiment, is no demerit, because Kathakali no less than other traditions requires imaginative artists dowered with the gift of physical beauty, as rich as Uday Shankar’s, to expound it. Mr. Pothan Joseph of the Hindustan Times, in the course of a lengthy attack on the classicism of Uday Shankar, queried whether it was possible to render a dance exactly as it was rendered in Sri Harsha’s time, intending to bring home the utter impossibility of it. In the tableau referred to above, Uday Shankar has in a great measure done it,–a truly marvelous feat of artistic synthesis!

To invoke Bharata and tradition, one imagined, was the trait of a Pundit; obviously Uday Shankar is not ashamed of a trait that throws him into the company of a much hated class of people. Like Shankar, the writer also is a student and a votary of the very Bharata and traditions that he has invoked; he would be therefore denying himself if he denied Uday Shankar now.

More beautiful than his dance was his gesture to such of those as were not fully pleased with his expositions, past and present, not to judge him by these, but to judge him by what he intends to do. The writer who has been pleased by his present performance makes bold to assert that, at this rate, his future is certain to prove far greater than his past: indeed, he may turn out to be the medium through whom Natya-Kala might fulfill itself,–the man born to be king, of Dance! Like Shankar the writer also is continuously learning; among other things he has learnt recently is the occasional utility of such people who, with Shankar, invoke tradition and Bharata.

Truly yours,

31st March 1935

Mylapore, Madras