Ram Gopal

Populariser of Indian dance with aspirations to godliness

Bissano Ram Gopal, dancer: born Bangalore, India 20 November 1917; OBE 1999; married Edith Alexander (deceased); died Croydon, Surrey 12 October 2003.

In his day Ram Gopal did more than anyone to popularise Indian dancing and to educate the public into the aesthetics and the mystique of the various forms of Hindu dance. He made his first sensational appearance in London in 1939, when his exotic presence, sheer beauty of physique and superb artistry charmed audiences and made him the talk of the town. He was the greatest thing since Uday Shankar but, with the outbreak of the Second World War, he returned to India.

Ram Gopal was born in Bangalore of a Hindu father and a Burmese mother; according to his passport, he was born in 1917, although some claim his date of birth to have been up to five years earlier. His mother was very beautiful and he idealised her; his father was handsome, but strict and conventional and utterly opposed to his son's dancing. However, nothing could prevent the young Gopal from exercising his love of movement.

Fashioned for dance by nature, lithe, exquisitely proportioned, with a resilient brain that instinctively felt the pulse of rhythm, he pursued his bent. With stubborn, tenacious temperament, he aspired to godliness. In the "gossamer tapestry" of his youth, he tells in his autobiography (Rhythm in the Heavens, 1957) how he was entranced by thunderstorms and liked to run naked into a blinding storm, defying the elements with his rhythm of movement, "to be frightened," as he said, "into an ecstasy".

While still a child, Gopal was invited to dance for the Yuvaraja of Mysore at the Lalita Mahal palace in the presence of the Viceroy. Bejewelled like the Boy Krishna and fortified with a gulp of champagne, he danced his heart out. He was rapturously applauded. It was his début as a dance-artist and he felt he was possessed by an angel.

He studied the different forms of Indian dancing, Kathakali, Bharatra Natya and Manipuri, with some of the greatest teachers, but the beloved teacher of his youth was Kunju Kurup, with whom he practised exacting eye exercises for hours on end. Kurup would massage Gopal's face and back to give him the greatest mobility for expressing Kathakali dances. From Kurup he learned the mudras (hand gestures) based on the rituals of the Hindu gods, and absorbed the constructive contemplation that the great masters found in yoga.

During these formative years he travelled and studied, visiting remote villages for his researches, travelling by rail, bullock-cart, horseback or by any means available. His appetite for dance was insatiable. He discovered the temple frescoes of Ajanta and he saw himself as the living exponent of the temple dancer. By now he began to feel that he had perfected his technique sufficiently to take Hindu dance into the theatre and, just at that auspicious moment, an American dance personality descended upon India.

La Meri, the American ethnic danseuse, visited India in 1937 and, discovering Gopal, invited him to teach her Kathakali and accompany her on a tour of the Far East. Together they danced in Rangoon, Malaya, Java, the Philippines, China and Japan, and everywhere they went they studied the dances of the country they were visiting. In Tokyo, Gopal received rave notices: "the soul of genius", "physical form of a perfect dancer", "he is beautiful to behold in every movement". It was too much for La Meri. She returned to America, leaving him stranded. He fell ill but was eventually rescued by John Gadsby, legal adviser to the British Embassy in Tokyo, who gave him assistance to return to India to form a troupe for the purpose of touring the West. Out of misfortune came his greatest opportunity.

In 1938 Ram Gopal arrived in America by way of the Pacific. Armed with introductions to Cecil B. de Mille and Artur Rubinstein, he was able to give recitals under the impresario Sol Hurok's banner in Hollywood and in New York. He was fascinated with the glamour of Hollywood, where he met Max Reinhardt and, fired with the soaring vitality of New York, he felt himself in the world of the "greats". The writer and critic Carl Van Vechten wrote of his performance: "Ram Gopal tears us away from the untruths of everyday life into the reality of his mystic visions."

Gopal travelled next to Poland, where he gave a number of recitals and visited the house of Chopin. From Poland he advanced on Paris, where he feasted on the museums and danced at the Musée Guimet, a temple of Indian art. The dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar wrote in Le Figaro:

A new friend of the dance has come to us from antique Asia, from that mystical and enchanting India. The exotic side of his dancing charms and fascinates us; but what really moves us is the mystic spirit that animates him.

Thence to London, where he received his greatest ovation. In a season at the Aldwych Theatre he enthralled the social throng and was taken up by royalty. The ballet writer Arnold Haskell wrote: "Rarest of all, when alone on the stage he is able to make us visualise a whole frieze, a living Ajanta." The New Statesman reported: "Mr Gopal, with his unearthly physical control . . . yet ominous grace, held the audience transfixed."

He looked set for a long run but the war intervened and he returned to India. During the war years Gopal opened his own school of dance in Bangalore. He built an open studio in the garden of his house, and formed his troupe of dancers. With his group he toured hospitals performing for British and Indian troops, and welcomed the London Ballet, which had come to bring classical dance to India.

At one period he met and danced for Mahatma Gandhi, whom he revered for his wisdom and gentleness. It was Gandhi who suggested to Gopal that he should preface his dances with verbal descriptions so that audiences could understand them and enjoy them more fully. At the Regent Theatre in Delhi, the Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru paid a visit and was deeply impressed. In 1948 Nehru chose Gopal to represent India at the Golden Anniversary Dance Festival at the City Centre, New York.

From America he returned again to London with his company of dancers and musicians and there set up a base from which he carried out numerous European tours for almost a decade. Kay Ambrose, a ballet artist-writer, fell under his spell and became attached to Gopal's entourage. She made countless drawings of him, many of which appeared in her book Indian Dancing (1951). She became a confidante of the dancer and toured continuously with the company.

During the 1950s he gave frequent seasons in London at the Saville, Princes, Adelphi, Cambridge and Vaudeville theatres after touring the provinces and throughout Europe. During a subsequent tour of the United States he appeared at Jacob's Pillow, America's shrine to dance, and, more and more, he prefaced his renderings with the spoken word.

Before Gopal, Uday Shankar was the artiste-philosopher of Indian dancing, with his erudition and taste; he had paved the way by incorporating old traditional movements with new variations and his own virtuoso style. Following his lead, Gopal became more egotistical and romantic, absorbed in his own godliness and beauty. From time to time, leading danseuses from India such as Retna Mohini, Mrilini Sarabhai, Sheranbi and Kumadini appeared with him but, even so, all the glamour was centred upon Gopal himself and there were occasions when only his name appeared on the printed programme, while his company went nameless.

As Shankar had once danced a pas de deux with Anna Pavlova, so Gopal persuaded Alicia Markova, star of the Ballet Russe, American Ballet Theatre and Festival Ballet, to dance Princess Radha to his Krishna in 1960. Markova's classical serenity brought a marvellous contrast to his brilliant Krishna. The performance was acclaimed.

An incurable addict of the exotic, Gopal fell in love with the Russian ballet. His first youthful encounter was in Bombay, when Victor Dandré toured the remnants of the Pavlova Company on a memorial world tour. Gopal met and was enchanted by Olga Spessivtzeva. Later, in the West, he saw the de Basil Ballet Russe and the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets. He felt a special affinity with Vaslav Nijinsky and was thrilled when Romola Nijinsky brought her husband to see him performing. During the interval they formally met and were photographed together. The other great ballerina he adored was Galina Ulanova. For Gopal her art was divine.

Whenever he returned to India, Gopal felt himself the victim of intrigues. Although he lectured and danced at the Sanskrit universities of Allahabad, Benares, Lahore and at many centres in central and northern India, he never received the same adulation that was bestowed upon him in the Western world. The government of India gave him sparse support for his foreign tours but he was fortunate to have the skilled direction of the impresarios Julian Braunsweg and, later, Sandor Gorlinsky, who organised his tours in England and around the world, including successful seasons at the Royal Festival Hall and the Edinburgh Festival.

As Gopal's dancing prowess declined, he turned his attention to forming in 1962 a School of Indian Dance in London and then retired to Venice, where he made some films about his life. With age he lost some of his physique but retained his handsome looks - he was forever young in spirit. Eventually, tiring of Venice, he settled in Grasse in the south of France and acquired a second home in Annecy. He spent his last years in south-west London.

John Gregory

* John Gregory died 27 October 1996