Uday Shankar, a doyen of Indian dance and choreography whose career spanned from colonial to postcolonial times in India, is a name to reckon with in the landscape of Indian and world performance culture. However, his experimental approach has often made his legacy a subject of debate, hindering research inquiries, leaving his extensive body of work rather underdiscussed. In this context, Urmimala Sarkar Munsi's book Uday Shankar and His Transcultural Experimentations emerges as a significant and much-needed contribution. In this book, Munsi offers a fascinating exploration of the life and creative evolution of Uday Shankar. With meticulous research and thoughtful observation, Munsi takes readers on a transformative journey, delving into Shankar's pioneering approach to dance and the experiments that defined his illustrious career.
By immersing readers in the historical and cultural context of Shankar's era, Munsi adeptly maps his niche in dance topography. She highlights the significance of Shankar's interactions with prominent artists like Anna Pavlova and Martha Graham, offering a glimpse into the intricate web of transcultural exchanges that influenced his artistic vision. The accounts of the foreign tours of Shankar's troupe allow readers an extensive survey of the influences that shaped Shankar's innovative, eclectic and diverse approach to dance.
One of the strengths of the book is how the author challenges conventional narratives surrounding Indian dance. She delves into Shankar's experiences as a foreign performer in the Western world but effectively disproves the notion that his success was simply attributed to orientalist fascination. Munsi argues persuasively that Shankar's willingness to integrate Western dance forms, performance discipline and presentational rigour into his work was not a rejection of his own culture but a testament to his openness to artistic evolution and innovation. In doing so, Munsi calls into question the simplistic characterizations of Shankar as an impressionistic adventurer and instead paints a nuanced portrait while negotiating complex cultural intersections.
In the lucid introductory chapter, Munsi sets the tone for the book while recalling her association with Uday Shankar and his wife Amala Shankar (an illustrious dancer/choreographer). But the author must be credited for the immaculate balancing act that she sustains in the narrative of the book, wherein she not only writes in admiration of Uday Shankar but also objectively assesses the varied criticisms of Shankar's body of work and adequately offers rejoinders through her insightful and insider's knowledge of Shankar's oeuvre. Munsi's careful selection of the guiding tropes, like the grammar and historiography of dance, to signify Shankar's style and philosophy is embodied in her statements such as, ‘Kapila Vatsyayan criticized Shankar's dance and choreographic works, emphasizing the (undisciplined) free flow of movements and the grammarless-ness of his dance’ (p. 12) and ‘[Joan] Erdman's research … creates an opportunity for a historiographic exercise to understand the scope of the word “translation” when the work has not intentionally been recognized as a translation by the choreographer himself’ (p. 15).
The book showcases Shankar's role as a cultural ambassador, bridging the East and West through his art. Through an interweaving of compelling arguments, Munsi highlights the importance of celebrating his contributions as integral to India's cultural heritage: ‘It is an effort to address the layered history in which Shankar becomes the agent of an intercultural conversation’ (p. 16). To challenge traditional beliefs and advocate Shankar's inclusive philosophy of dance, Munsi invites readers to re-evaluate his legacy and the impact of his transcultural experimentations. Her exploration of gender and of emotive expressions in Shankar's productions lends depth to the reader's understanding of his artistic vision and the cultural contexts in which he operated. A collation of rare pictures, archival evidence and quotes from interviews, as well as anecdotes of people from Shankar's world, are also part of the charm of the book.
Uday Shankar and His Transcultural Experimentations is a thought-provoking and meticulously researched book that offers a fresh perspective and resource on the life and work of Shankar to performers, students, researchers, pedagogues and culturalists. Munsi's astute analysis makes this book a vital addition to the literature on Indian dance, transcultural exchanges and the legacy of Uday Shankar.
