Biography of Uday Shankar

Born: 8 December 1900, Udaipur
Died: 26 September 1977, Kolkata

Uday Shankar was born on December 8, 1900, at Udaipur, Rajasthan, in a high caste Bengali Brahmin family. From the very childhood, he was interested in music, stage performances and games.

Uday Shankar never had any formal training in any of the classical dance forms. Uday Shankar invented his dance movements, drawing inspiration from the Rajput and the Mughal miniature paintings. After his successful seven-year tour of Europe and his spectacular success in America under the banner of Sol Hurok, he intermittently visited India and performed under the banner of Garen Ghosh. By 1940, he started his famous Uday Shankar India Culture Centre, imparting the art of creativity, improvisation, concentration and imagination to the dancers.

He also made a film titled Kalpana', which is the only record of his dances. He experimented in shadow play and produced a spectacle carrying a juxtaposition of the stage and the screen in his unique Shankar scope. He died but his legacy is continued by his family members.