1962 Tour of the USA, Canada and Europe
During the summer of 1962, Dada gave us a month’s break. Once we returned, we started with our preparations for our tour of Canada, USA and Europe. All our performances in various parts of Europe as well as our performance in Seattle World Fair, was organized by the Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India. The rest of our performances in Canada and USA were hosted by the internationally renowned impresario Solomon Hurok. Hurok’s association with Uday Shankar dated back to the days when Dada was a member of Pavlova’s troupe. All of Uday Shankar’s visits to the USA with his troupe were sponsored by Sol Hurok.
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We began our preparation for the tour of 1962 by attending a general class conducted by Dada at his home. The goal of these classes was twofold – the first was to help focus our minds and to bring about supreme coordination and synchronization of our body and mind; and the second, to maximize our dexterity. We had to exercise all the various parts of our bodies, especially our limbs and joints. Apart from these exercises, improvisation classes were also held to help enhance our creativity as artists. During these improvisation classes, due to shortage of space, Dada used to pair us off and give us a subject. We had to express our thoughts on the subject with our imagination and creativity, by composing a dance.
After a month of these general and improvisation classes, Dada took us all to Madras for a period of four months. The reason behind this move was to ensure that our focus was not hampered by any personal distractions. We used to rehearse for 7 hours a day, 6 days a week at Dada’s home in Madras. Sunday was our only day of rest; but towards the latter part of our preparations, we used to rehearse on Sundays as well.
Images: Private collection of Shanti Bose
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Apart from Samanya Kshati, the items that we learned and prepared for our tour included, The Great Renunciation, Astrapuja, Bramhaputra, Khadya – which included his famous composition of Labour and Machinery and Panthadi. We had also prepared the Harvest Dance – but we did not stage it during the tour. Apart from these items, Boudi used to perform to the song ‘Krishna Ni Begame Baro’ while Dada performed his famous item Indra. Other than these solos, Dada and Boudi also performed with us in the short ballets of Bramhaputra, Khadya and The Great Renunciation.
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Apart from dance, a very important and integral aspect of any performance is its costumes, music and lighting. I too came to be actively involved and learned these aspects of showmanship under Dada’s guidance. Each dancer was given the responsibility for his own costumes. Our costumes used to be stitched and kept ready in such a manner, that we could change in and out of them in a matter of minutes and the audience could hardly make out that it was the same artist who was performing on stage again. We were given new costumes for a few items of this tour, for the rest of the items we altered old costumes and in a few cases rearranged a few patterns on them ourselves. I learned how to tie different kinds of paagdis – the traditional Indian headwear tied out of a long piece of cloth. Some of the paagdis were of course already stitched to enable quick changes. The hair decorations used by the girls were of course readymade as they were rather intricate and had to be adorned very quickly. We used to have separate ornaments for each item, or dance in the ballets, as per the demands of the scenes we were enacting.
Dada used to have these huge fireproof and waterproof boxes. Apart from his instruments and lights, these also contained our costumes. Each box used to hold about 6 – 8 wooden trays of costumes for the performers. Each tray was about 3 feet in length, 2 feet in width and about 5 inches in height. Every individual tray contained costumes for all the items to be performed by each individual dancer, along with their ornaments. Sometimes if a dancer performed fewer items, he would share his tray with another dancer who had fewer items in his kitty as well. After our performances, we would rearrange our clothes and keep them in our respective trays. We had a person who travelled with us for the explicit purpose of ironing our costumes before every show.
Apart from our costumes, in order to identify that we were all a part of Uday Shankar’s troupe, Dada gave us all a uniform of prince coats and overcoats. We had to don them while we were travelling from one destination to another, and when attending formal gatherings. Apart from Dada and Boudi, the troupe members for this tour comprised: Pappu Raghavan (Troupe Coach and Ballet Master), Ashoke Nandy (Ballet Registrar), Asit Chatterjee, Raman Nair Vasudevan, Animesh Bakshi, Ganesh Dutta, Achyut Narayan, and me, the youngest among the male dancers. My name in this souvenir was printed as Amarendra Bose. It was only during the 1968 tour that Dada suggested I should start using Shanti Bose. Meena Nandi, Kabita Bakshi, N. Jayashree, P.S. Vasantha, Kalpana Roy and Purnima Bose were the other dancers.
Music for Samanya Kshati as well as for the other items was rearranged under the direction of Lakshmi Shankar, as the music was performed live during our tours abroad. She was also the vocalist for Samanya Kshati. Married to Rajendra Shankar, Lakshmi Shankar was Uday Shankar’s sister-in-law. The other musicians included Rabin Das on the Sarod, Soumen Dey on the Flute, Tarun Ganguly on the Drums, Ranjan Mazumdar on the Sitar, Sambhunath Mukherjee on Percussion, and Uday Shankar’s son Ananda Shankar on the Sitar and Percussion.
Costumes were designed by Amala Shankar. Dada’s Personal Manager was Bhudeb Shankar. Chiranjilal Shah deserves special mention for being with the troupe for the longest period of time. He used to be fondly and respectfully addressed as Shaji. He had been with Dada from his Almora days since 1939. Dada had complete confidence in him and it was he who used to check out the suitability of the stage, the backstage and the greenrooms before every performance, in order to ensure that the performers did not face any difficulty during the performance.
We set sail on a ship from Bombay for our trip to the USA on September 26, 1962. As children, we had studied in General Knowledge books that Uday Shankar was India’s first cultural ambassador − the first Indian to represent Indian culture in different countries all over the world. That I was now to be a part of this endeavour, thrilled me immensely. I felt exceedingly proud to be representing India with this great artist.
After sailing across the Arabian Sea, we first stopped at the port city of Aden in Yemen. We then set sail on the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and stopped at the Messina Islands in Italy. During our stopover at Messina, we went sightseeing by car and spent the entire day at the ruins of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. From Messina, we sailed on to Naples, and then onward to Genoa. From Genoa we travelled by train to Paris. We got to spend quite a few hours in Paris, and were fortunate enough to visit the Eiffel Tower and all the major landmarks in Paris. From Paris we took a train to a port in France (the name escapes me), and then crossed the English Channel. After crossing the English Channel, we travelled by train to London.
We stayed in London for five days. We visited all the well-known tourist sites like Trafalgar Square, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, the British Museum, the Commonwealth Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and various other places. We flew from London, crossed the Atlantic Sea and landed in New York. A television coverage had been arranged in a room at the New York International Airport itself. I was among the privileged few who had been asked by Dada to be present for the event.
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From New York, we flew to Seattle. Our first performance in the USA was in the city of Seattle. We performed at the World Fair, representing our country, on behalf of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India. From Seattle we went on to perform in Vancouver. From Vancouver, we flew to Montreal. From Montreal we went to New York. After our performance in New York, we went on to perform in Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles – Hollywood, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington D.C, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, and then finally flew back to New York. I know I have missed out on quite a few cities that we performed in apart from these, but this is the best I can recall, as 49 intervening years have somehow cropped up since that tour.
This tour not only led me to experience my first international trip, but it was also my first experience of travelling by ship and flying in an airplane. It was also the first time I experienced snow. This was during our performance in New York. When we entered the hall, the weather had been nice and clear. But when we came out after our performance, everything was white all around us. Everything had been covered with snow. We were all stunned and delighted by the soft whiteness all around us. Nowadays, children are acquainted with various natural phenomena thanks to books, documentaries and television. But our generation, which had grown up amid strife, did not have this kind of exposure. So, I had no idea what a snow-covered city could look like. It is one of the most treasured sights that I can recall.
After performing our last show in New York, we flew back to London. Although we had stayed in London for five days during our onward journey and had a stopover in the city for a few hours on our return journey, we did not perform in London. From London, we then went on to perform in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. From the Netherlands we flew to Germany. In Germany, we had quite a few performances in the cities of Bonn, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Berlin. The next country we visited was Yugoslavia. From Yugoslavia we went on to Poland. We then went on to perform in Copenhagen in Denmark and Stockholm in Sweden. Our last performance in Europe was in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. As mentioned before, for the entire leg of our European tour, we represented India on behalf of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India.
We returned by ship from Europe to India. The first ship we boarded on our trip back was equipped to travel on icy waters, as winter had already set in. We changed ships midway during our journey and returned to Bombay. I remember we had celebrated our Republic Day on 26th January on the ship. Lakshmi Boudi had taught us the song Saare Jahaan Se Achha which we all sang with great fervour, on the deck of the ship. After a tour of five months – 2 months in America and 3 months in Europe, we finally docked in Bombay on February 3, 1963.
