ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Uday Shankar and Tagore as the two path breakers of their time as far as performing arts of modern India is concerned. They are also both harbingers of social change, concerned with India’s education system, humanists and universalists in their thought and action – and this is apparent through their work. They paved the way for social upliftment of performing arts and artists, from the manner in which they had come to be viewed during the British era, when every form of dance had been clubbed under the word nautch, a distortion of the word naach, meaning dance. The production of Samanya Kshati and Udara Charitanam, the ballets which Shankar created based on Tagore’s poems by the same name, sees Shankar’s creativity take off from Tagore as these were presented to pay tribute to the Nobel Laureate poet on his birth centenary. This chapter also speculates as to why Uday Shankar chose for his production these particular pieces as performative texts. It examines the performative and illustrative texts of the production itself, delving into the storytelling, the additions to Tagore’s narrative made by Shankar, the experiments with costume, lights and other stagecraft as well as the technology used – which was far ahead of its time. It also glimpses into the professionalism brought to the art form by Uday Shankar and identifies the occasions, locales and periods that the performances were carried out in and for. It highlights the fact that Shankar managed to bring together on a common platform, a team which comprised a veritable who’s who from the world of Indian classical music, to create and perform the music of Samanya Kshati, which was composed by none other than his brother, the late sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar.
