If you ask performing arts historians about the first generation of Indian dancers with a global name, they will easily say Uday Shankar, in spite of the fact that he went to become a painter and returned as dancer. Keeping Uday Shankar aside, there were several others who had dance in their blood from the very beginning. This is the story of one such born dancer.
Painters sketched him, sculptors chiselled little figurines of him in movement, the press across the world raved about his performances. They hailed him as “India’s answer to Nijinsky” in the earlier part of the 20th century. From London to New York, Hollywood to Japan, Ram Gopal was one of the earliest to put India on the world dance map. To Indian classical dancers from the flower-power generation of the ’70s, he was someone who achieved unimaginable heights for an Indian dancer. To the current generation of dancers, he is a forgotten entity. Who was Ram Gopal and what was his story?
Beessano Ram Gopal was born on November 20, 1917, in Bangalore to a Rajput lawyer father and a Burmese mother. Despite parental opposition, he took up dance as a profession after he saw the palace dancers at the famous Mysore Dussehra celebrations as a child. Seeing his enthusiasm for dance, he was greatly patronised by the prince of Mysore. By the end of his teens, Ram was already the most sought-after dancer in the Mysore State.
He went ahead to take lessons in Kathak from Guru Sohan Lal of the Jaipur Gharana, who was settled in Bangalore. Alongside, he began visiting Kerala and training in Kathakali from Guru Kunju Kurup at the Kalamandalam set up by Vallathol Narayana Menon. He and Mrinalini Swaminathan (now Sarabhai) took lessons in Bharatanatyam under the legendary Nattuvanar Meenakshisundaram Pillai. He took elements from each of these dance forms and created his own unique style, which became extremely popular with the western audiences as "Oriental Dance".
Seeing one of his successful performances, the famous Russian dancer La Meri, who was touring south India, invited him to join her entourage in 1936. What would have otherwise been an exciting tour ended with an abrupt halt in Japan. La Meri could not digest the rave reviews and popularity Ram received and decided to dump him midway through the tour. Ram struggled his way back to Bangalore.
Establishing his own dance company, he began experimenting with choreography. Several dancers like Tara Choudhry and Shevanti joined his Dance Company. Even the Javanese dancer Retna Mohini, who later married the famous photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, was a part of Ram Gopal’s dance company. South India’s biggest music orchestra, The Saraswati Orchestra, with over 25 members, headed by MS Natarajan, provided music to Ram Gopal’s dance productions in those years.
Invitations came from far and wide. His first dance tours to Europe began soon after. In London, Glasgow, Ireland and elsewhere, Ram stunned his audiences. Such was the importance give to him in London that he was invited to perform at the inauguration of the Indian section at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1947. A silent video clipping from the British Pathe archives shows us Ram and his dancers performing what they titled Hindu Dances. In this clip one can see the dancers from his group Shevanti, Rajeshwar and others.
Indian Dancer (1947)
British Pathé
Ram Gopal who idolised the great Vaslav Nijinsky as his hero finally managed to meet him in 1948. Nijinsky had come to attend Ram’s performance and the two met in the greenroom. Ram wrote about this historic meeting with a great sense of awe. In 1955, Ram was also the first Indian dancer to perform at the South Bank Center. Kathak dancer Kumudini Lakhia was a part of this historic tour.
In the mid-1950s, Ram had a brief stint in Hollywood. He played minor roles in movies like The Purple Plain and William Dieterle's Elephant Walk for which he also choreographed the dance sequences. In The Purple Plain, a British war film set in Burma towards the end of World War II, Ram plays a small role as Mr Phang. He shared the screen with Gregory Peck, who plays a Royal Air Force pilot and the central character of the film. Despite being set in Burma, the film was actually shot in Ceylon. In Elephant Walk, a British film about a rubber plantation during the Malayan Emergency, Ram played the supervisor of the plantation.
He returned to India and eventually migrated to Europe to settle down. Almost none of the dancers of his company survive today. Tara Chaudhry died unsung last September in Karachi and Shevanti earlier this year on June 11. Both his occasional collaborators Kathak veteran Kumudini Lakhia and Bharatanatyam diva Mrinalini Sarabhai live in Ahmedabad.
An interview taken when he was frail and old, then living in Venice, is available in three parts. In this, Ram speaks of his initial days in India, his tours across the world as a dancer.
Ram spent his final days in an old age nursing home in London. He donated a few of his costumes, including the iconic The Eagle Dance piece, to the Victoria and Albert museum. Made of soft leather and covered in pure gold leaf, this costume is a sight to see for anyone who visits the museum. It is said that Ram had a special case designed to carry each of the parts of this costume separately when he went on international tours. Several images of Ram seen often ostentatiously dressed, shot by legendary photographers like George Hurrell, Houston Rogers and Cecil Beaton, continue to capture public imagination. A portrait of his is housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Ram wrote his autobiography Rhythm in the Heavens in the early 1950s. He was also a subject of several early books on Indian dance. All of them are out of print and out of circulation today.
For someone whose contribution to Indian classical dance is undeniable, he got pretty little from the state as acknowledgement. Neither did successive governments do much for him, nor did the classical dance community in India take up his cause. Today he is a forgotten figure in the world of dance. But in the 20th century history of Indian classical dance, Ram Gopal will be remembered, as its first iconic superstar.
Painters sketched him, sculptors chiselled little figurines of him in movement, the press across the world raved about his performances. They hailed him as “India’s answer to Nijinsky” in the earlier part of the 20th century. From London to New York, Hollywood to Japan, Ram Gopal was one of the earliest to put India on the world dance map. To Indian classical dancers from the flower-power generation of the ’70s, he was someone who achieved unimaginable heights for an Indian dancer. To the current generation of dancers, he is a forgotten entity. Who was Ram Gopal and what was his story?
Beessano Ram Gopal was born on November 20, 1917, in Bangalore to a Rajput lawyer father and a Burmese mother. Despite parental opposition, he took up dance as a profession after he saw the palace dancers at the famous Mysore Dussehra celebrations as a child. Seeing his enthusiasm for dance, he was greatly patronised by the prince of Mysore. By the end of his teens, Ram was already the most sought-after dancer in the Mysore State.
He went ahead to take lessons in Kathak from Guru Sohan Lal of the Jaipur Gharana, who was settled in Bangalore. Alongside, he began visiting Kerala and training in Kathakali from Guru Kunju Kurup at the Kalamandalam set up by Vallathol Narayana Menon. He and Mrinalini Swaminathan (now Sarabhai) took lessons in Bharatanatyam under the legendary Nattuvanar Meenakshisundaram Pillai. He took elements from each of these dance forms and created his own unique style, which became extremely popular with the western audiences as "Oriental Dance".
Seeing one of his successful performances, the famous Russian dancer La Meri, who was touring south India, invited him to join her entourage in 1936. What would have otherwise been an exciting tour ended with an abrupt halt in Japan. La Meri could not digest the rave reviews and popularity Ram received and decided to dump him midway through the tour. Ram struggled his way back to Bangalore.
Establishing his own dance company, he began experimenting with choreography. Several dancers like Tara Choudhry and Shevanti joined his Dance Company. Even the Javanese dancer Retna Mohini, who later married the famous photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, was a part of Ram Gopal’s dance company. South India’s biggest music orchestra, The Saraswati Orchestra, with over 25 members, headed by MS Natarajan, provided music to Ram Gopal’s dance productions in those years.
Tara Chaudhri and Ram Gopal, The dancing couple, 1945.
Invitations came from far and wide. His first dance tours to Europe began soon after. In London, Glasgow, Ireland and elsewhere, Ram stunned his audiences. Such was the importance give to him in London that he was invited to perform at the inauguration of the Indian section at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1947. A silent video clipping from the British Pathe archives shows us Ram and his dancers performing what they titled Hindu Dances. In this clip one can see the dancers from his group Shevanti, Rajeshwar and others.
Indian Dancer (1947)
British Pathé
Ram Gopal who idolised the great Vaslav Nijinsky as his hero finally managed to meet him in 1948. Nijinsky had come to attend Ram’s performance and the two met in the greenroom. Ram wrote about this historic meeting with a great sense of awe. In 1955, Ram was also the first Indian dancer to perform at the South Bank Center. Kathak dancer Kumudini Lakhia was a part of this historic tour.
Vassal Nijinsky with Ram Gopal
In the mid-1950s, Ram had a brief stint in Hollywood. He played minor roles in movies like The Purple Plain and William Dieterle's Elephant Walk for which he also choreographed the dance sequences. In The Purple Plain, a British war film set in Burma towards the end of World War II, Ram plays a small role as Mr Phang. He shared the screen with Gregory Peck, who plays a Royal Air Force pilot and the central character of the film. Despite being set in Burma, the film was actually shot in Ceylon. In Elephant Walk, a British film about a rubber plantation during the Malayan Emergency, Ram played the supervisor of the plantation.
He returned to India and eventually migrated to Europe to settle down. Almost none of the dancers of his company survive today. Tara Chaudhry died unsung last September in Karachi and Shevanti earlier this year on June 11. Both his occasional collaborators Kathak veteran Kumudini Lakhia and Bharatanatyam diva Mrinalini Sarabhai live in Ahmedabad.
An interview taken when he was frail and old, then living in Venice, is available in three parts. In this, Ram speaks of his initial days in India, his tours across the world as a dancer.
Ram spent his final days in an old age nursing home in London. He donated a few of his costumes, including the iconic The Eagle Dance piece, to the Victoria and Albert museum. Made of soft leather and covered in pure gold leaf, this costume is a sight to see for anyone who visits the museum. It is said that Ram had a special case designed to carry each of the parts of this costume separately when he went on international tours. Several images of Ram seen often ostentatiously dressed, shot by legendary photographers like George Hurrell, Houston Rogers and Cecil Beaton, continue to capture public imagination. A portrait of his is housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Ram wrote his autobiography Rhythm in the Heavens in the early 1950s. He was also a subject of several early books on Indian dance. All of them are out of print and out of circulation today.
For someone whose contribution to Indian classical dance is undeniable, he got pretty little from the state as acknowledgement. Neither did successive governments do much for him, nor did the classical dance community in India take up his cause. Today he is a forgotten figure in the world of dance. But in the 20th century history of Indian classical dance, Ram Gopal will be remembered, as its first iconic superstar.
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