Olive Craddock

Roshanara
Roshanara by Underwood & Underwood
Born	Olive Katherine Craddock 22 January 1894 Calcutta, British India
Died	14 July 1926 (aged 32) Asheville, North Carolina, United States
Cause of death	Appendicitis
Nationality	British
Occupation	dancer

Olive Katherine Craddock (22 January 1894 – 14 July 1926) was an Anglo-Indian dancer trained in British India who danced under the name Roshanara. She was known for showing central Indian dance techniques in Britain and America. She died in her thirties from appendicitis.

Craddock was born on 22 January 1892 in Calcutta. Her father was John James Nolan Craddock who was Anglo-Indian and her mother was Mabel Mary Ann Adams who was British. She learned to dance in India. before she moved to Britain around 1909. Craddock took the name Roshanara which built on the celebrity of the princess Roshanara Begum.

She danced with Loie Fuller's company and then undertook training with the Spanish dancer Carmen Tórtola Valencia. In 1911 she danced in London in Oscar Asche's Kismet and then as Zobeide in Scheherazade. This role was with the Ballets Russes at Covent Garden. The following year she appeared with Anna Pavlova's dance company as a speciality dancer. She had several dances that were performed using extracts from the 1880s Oriental opera Lakmé by the French composer Léo Delibes.

Craddock started to work in the United States in 1916 where she appeared in Vaudeville theatres. In 1917 she and Japanese dancer Michio Itō were the specialty dancers with Adolf Bolm's company Ballet Intime. Roshanara also appeared with Ratan Devi who was a British singer who had been to India to study music. Devi was accompanied by her husband Ananda Coomaraswamy who was employed by the Boston Museum of Art as an expert on Indian culture. Coomaraswamy wrote about how Roshanara was an authentic nautch dancer in contrast to Ruth St Denis who a few years before had shown Indian style dances.

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