Uday Shankar the pioneer of modern dance in India.

He was born on 8th December 1900 in Udaipur ,Rajasthan to a Bengali family.Their origin was Narail , Bangladesh.His father shyam Sankar Chowdhuri was a noted Barrister.He was employee of Jhalwar Rajasthan and his mother Hemangini Devi was from a Bengali Zeminder family.Ravi Shankar was his younger brother.His father was a Sanskrit scholar and graduated with honours in Sanskrit from university of Calcutta and later he studied at Oxford university where he became a Doctor of philosophy.His father moved very frequently on account of his work. The family spent much time in Uday's maternal uncle's house at Nasratpur with his mother and brothers.

Uday studied at different places like Nasratpur, Gazipur , Varanasi and jhalwar.At his Gazipur school he learned music and photography from his drawing and craft teacher.
In 1918 he was sent  to  J.J. school of Art , Mumbai and then to Gandharbha Mahabidyalaya.

Subsequently he joined Royal college of Arts, London to study painting.He danced in few charity performances organized by his father in London.

                                                               

Uday Shankar did not have any formal training in any of the Indian classical dance forms.From young age he was interested in both Indian classical dance and folk dance as well as ballet during his stay in Europe.

He decided to bring elements of both the styles together to create a new dance which he called HI DANCE.

Subsequently he left for Rome for the advanced studies in Arts after getting a scholarship from the French government. The turning point came with his first meeting with the legendary Russian balledina Anna parlova .He created a ballet RADHA KRISHNA.The same was presented in London.
He worked with Annya for one and half years,before starting out on his own in Paris.He returned from Paris in1931,soon he started for a seven years tour to Europe and America with his own troops whom he called Uday Shankar and his  Hindu Ballet.

                                                              

He preformed for the first time in 1933 in USA in New York city. His adoption of European theatrical technique to Indian dance made his art immense popular both in India and abroad.

In 1938,he made India as his base and established the Uday Shankar Indian cultural centre at Simtal.

Uday Shankar settled in Ballygunge Kolkata in 1969,where the Uday Shankar centre for dance was later opened in 1965.In1962 he was awarded the highest award for Sangeet  Natak Academy award, the Sangeet Academy Fellowship for lifetime contributions to Indian dance.In 1971 he was awarded ,Padma vibhushan .In 1975 he was awarded Deshikottam by viswa Bharati university.He married his dance partner Amala Shankar.They had a son Ananda Shankar and a daughter Mamta Shankar He died on 26th September, 1977.