Indian dance

Ram Gopal

About:

Ram Gopal, the Indian dancer, and his troupe performed at London's Aldwych Theatre in 1939. During this visit, he also danced at a charity performance for the Hindustani Social Club.

According to his passport, Ram Gopal was born in Bangalore in 1917, although some claim his date of birth to have been up to five years earlier. La Meri, the American danseuse, visited India in 1937 and, discovering Gopal, invited him to teach her Kathakali and accompany her on a tour of the Far East. He danced in Rangoon, Malaya, Java, the Philippines, China and Japan. He then went to the USA in 1938 and then on to Europe and was feted when he arrived in London. The press praised Gopal's accomplished dancing, comparing him favourably with Uday Shankar. Ram Gopal received rave reviews and was set to stay in Britain for a long run, but with the outbreak of the Second World War had to return to India.

Ram Gopal built a dance school in Bangalore during the war years, and welcomed the London Ballet Company to India. Ram Gopal returned to London in July 1947. He was asked to perform at the reopening of the Indian section of the Victoria and Albert Museum on 17 September 1947. Subsequently he and his company were asked to perform seasons of several weeks at numerous theatres in London, such as The Prince’s Theatre, Adelphi and Cambridge. He founded a school of Indian dance in London in 1962. He spent his last years in England, and died in Surrey in 2003.

Published works:

(with Serozh Dadachanji) Indian Dancing (London: Phoenix House, 1951)

Rhythms in the Heaven: An Autobiography (London: Secker and Warburg, 1957)

Example:

Extract from New Scotland Yard Report No. 156, 13 December 1939, L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Date of birth:

20 Nov 1917

Connections:

Surat Alley, Mercedes de Acosta, Kay Ambrose, Yogen Desai, Anton Dolin, Douglas Fairbanks, John Gadsby, M. K. Gandhi, Arnold Heskell, Lord Lloyd, Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vaslav Nijinski Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Anna Pavlova, Michael Rouse (company organiser and manager), Queen Mary of Teck, Felix Topolski.

Precise DOB unknown:

Reviews:

New Statesman

News Chronicle

Extract:

A short time ago Ramzan alias Surat Ali was able to secure the services of the well known Indian dancer, Ram Gopal and his company, for a charity performance in order to mitigate the distress caused by the war among Indian seamen and pedlars, and a special matinee was arranged for Friday 1st December 1939, at the Vaudeville Theatre, Strand, W.C., the proceeds of which were to be given to the Hindustani Social Club.

Secondary works:

Ambrose, Kay, Classical Indian Dances and Costumes of India (London: Adam and Charles Black, London, 1950)

Archive source:

Programmes, V&A Theatre Collection, Earls Court, London

Ram Gopal Collection, South Asian Diaspora Literature and Arts Archive, London

L/PJ/12/630, Indian Office Record, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

City of birth:

Bangalore

Country of birth:

India

Other names:

Bisano Ram Gopal

Locations

Hyde Park Crescent

London, W2 2QD

United Kingdom

51° 30' 54.4212" N, 0° 10' 7.9608" W

See map: Google Maps

Pall Mall

London, SW1Y

United Kingdom

51° 30' 23.6592" N, 0° 8' 3.1452" W

See map: Google Maps

Date of death:

12 Oct 2003

Location of death:

Croydon, Surrey, England

Date of 1st arrival in Britain:

01 Apr 1939

Precise 1st arrival date unknown:

Dates of time spent in Britain:

1939, 1947-2003

Location:

London

Tags for Making Britain:

performance

Indian dance

Uday Shankar’s debut performance

Date:

13 Sep 1923

Event location:

Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9DD

About:

In 1922, the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova returned to London from her tour of East Asia and India. This trip had inspired her to stage a ballet on Indian themes. She had decided on three miniature ballets, ‘Ajanta Frescoes’, ‘A Hindu Wedding’ and ‘Krishna and Radha’. Her husband, Victor Dandre, who was also the manager of her dance troupe, commissioned the Indian musician, Comolata Banerji, the daughter of Sir Albion and Lady Banerji, to write the score for ‘Krishna and Radha ‘and ‘A Hindu Wedding’.

Through the wife of Mr N. C. Sen, who was the India Office official responsible for education and informally charged with looking after the Indian community in London, Pavlova was introduced to Uday Shankar. After auditioning for her she immediately asked him to choreograph the two ballets for her, and to partner her in the ‘Krishna and Radha’ ballet. Shankar’s choreography drew from his experiences of life in Rajasthan. The costumes and décor were based on miniatures in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the costumes were designed with fabrics Pavlova had bought during her visit to India.

Pavlova was scheduled to give a season of performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 10 September 1923. The season opened with Pavlova offering six new ballets over he season: ‘Ajanta Frescoes’, ‘A Polish Wedding’, ‘Dionysus’, ‘Oriental Impressions’, ‘Russian Folk Lore’ and ‘La Fille Mal Gardee’. On the first three nights, ‘Ajanta Frescoes’ was presented, ‘Oriental Impressions’, which included Shankar’s choreography, followed on 13 September. These set pieces received enthusiastic notices. The Times praised the ‘imaginative atmosphere’ of ‘Krishna and Radha’. In the newspaper reviews of the performances, Uday Shankar is not mentioned; even in the publicity and souvenir materials, he is merely acknowledged as the person who ‘arranged’ the dances. While Shankar choreographed ‘A Hindu Wedding’ and ‘Radha Krishna’, he performed in the latter opposite Pavlova. The music was played by a Western orchestra with Banerji’s orchestrations emulating Indian melodies and rhythms.

Following the success of the Covent Garden season, Shankar joined Pavlova on her American tour which opened at the Manhattan Opera House on 9 October 1923.

People involved:

Anna Pavlova, Uday Shankar.

Secondary works:

Banerji, Projesh, Uday Shankar and his Art (Delhi: B. R. Publications, 1982)

Khokar, Mohan, His Dance, His Life: a Portrait of Uday Shankar (New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1983)

Tags for Making Britain:

art

Indian dance

Hindustani Social Club

About:

Like the Hindustan Community House, the main purpose of the Hindustani Social Club was to do social and educational work among seamen and pedlars in the East End. A key figure in the HSC was Surat Alley, a political activist whose main concern and area of activism was the working conditions of Indian seamen. The Club also served as a social centre for Indians in the East End. In 1939, Alley organized a charity performance by the Indian dancer Ram Gopal and his troupe for the entertainment of the Club’s members (L/PJ/12/630, p. 60).

The Club also functioned as a political meeting place and as a forum where Indian activists could educate and mobilize working-class Indians against British colonial rule. Alley issued to its members news bulletins in Urdu and Bengali on the British Government’s oppression of Indian workers and peasants, and in 1942 the Club hosted an ‘Indian Independence Day’ meeting, attended by Mulk Raj Anand as well as numerous well-known activists (L/PJ/12/454, pp. 13-16). Further, with Surat Alley as its Honorary Secretary, it inevitably had links with the Colonial Seamen’s Association as well as with other organizations for lascars, and, according to a government surveillance report, in 1939 it served as a meeting place for striking lascars (L/PJ/12/630, p. 25). In the eyes of the Government, Surat Alley’s association with the Club made it particularly suspect; in 1940, its premises (also Alley’s home at the time) were searched because of Alley’s links with Udham Singh (ibid., p. 81).

Example:

Extract from New Scotland Yard Report No. 156, 13 December 1939, L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, p. 60

Secondary works:

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Content:

This Indian Political Intelligence file, titled ‘Indian Seamen: Unrest and Welfare’, includes numerous government surveillance and police reports on the activities of lascars in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, focusing in particular on their strikes and other forms of activism against their pay and conditions.

Date began:

01 Jan 1934

Extract:

A short time ago Ramzan alias Surat ALI was able to secure the services of the well known Indian dancer, Ram GOPAL and his company, for a charity performance in order to mitigate the distress caused by the war among Indian seamen and pedlars, and a special matinee was arranged for Friday 1st December, 1939, at the Vaudeville Theatre, Strand W.C., the proceeds of which were to be given to the Hindustani Social Club.

Although ALI did his utmost to boost the matinee and a special committee of the Hindustani Social Club was formed to organise publicity, with Mrs. May DUTT (wife of D.N. DUTT) of 160 Highlever Road, W.10 as its honorary treasurer, the performance had to be postponed owing to lack of support. There is no doubt that ALI’s failure was due to the fact that the London Indian Community has no faith in him and suspected that he would use the proceeds for his own ends.

Precise date began unknown:

Key Individuals' Details:

Surat Alley (Honorary Secretary), Said Amir Shah (Secretary).

Relevance:

This extract demonstrates the presence of South Asian culture – in the form of dance – at the heart of the imperial metropolis and in a key cultural venue. Moreover, the fact that this performance, which did eventually take place, was attended by working-class Indians from the HSC locates this disadvantaged sector of the community within this central London space, albeit briefly. That middle-class Indians (such as the Dutts) were concerned for the welfare of their working-class counterparts is suggestive of the sense of community which was developing among South Asians in Britain during this period, which evidently traversed boundaries of class. The involvement of Surat Alley, who was better known for his political activism on behalf of the lascars, with this cultural production points to the intersection of the cultural, social and political for Indians in Britain.

Connections:

Mulk Raj Anand (attended meetings), Dr D. N. Dutt (attended meetings), May Dutt (wife of Dr D. N. Dutt, Treasurer of publicity committee for charity performance given by Ram Gopal), Ram Gopal and company, Tahsil Miah (shared lodgings with Surat Alley at the HSC), Kundal Lal Jalie, Sahibdad Khan (attended meetings), Ghulam Mohammed (attended meetings), Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi (attended meetings), Sarah Reder (Alley’s ‘mistress’, attended meetings), John Kartar Singh (attended meetings), Dr C. B. Vakil (attended meetings).

Archive source:

Flyer, Tower Hamlets Archives Collection

L/PJ/12/454, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras