Ram Gopal (dancer)

Bissano Ram Gopal OBE (20 November 1912 – 12 October 2003) was an Indian dancer and choreographer who performed mostly as a soloist and toured extensively throughout his lengthy career. A modernist, he blended the classical Indian dance with balletic choreography, and along with Uday Shankar was among the first to showcase Indian classical dance in the West starting in the 1930s, Polish critic Tadeusz Zelenski called him "the Nijinsky of India".

As a choreographer, he is most known for his productions, Legend of the Taj Mahal, Dance of the Setting Sun and Dances of India. He is also noted for "Radha-Krishna", his collaboration with British ballerina Dame Alicia Markova, in 1960.

Gopal was born in Bangalore, India. He was named Bissano, being born on 20th November ( Bees = 20 in Hindi ). He had a Burmese mother and a Rajput father who was a barrister. They lived in a mansion called Torquay Castle. His grandmother was a well known dancer. Drawn to dance early on in his life, he learned Kathakali from Guru Kunju Kurup and Chandu Panickar. Once he danced at the annual garden party of the Maharajah of Mysore without his father's permission, but fortunately the Maharaja persuaded his father to allow him receive further dance training.

While in this early forties, he discovered Guru Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai of Pandanallur style under whom he started learning Bharatanatyam, followed by Muthukumaran Pillai., he also learned Kathak from Sohanlal and Bowri Prasad and even Manipuri dance, all of which he assimilated into his choreographies in the coming decades.

He was invited to the United States by La Meri, an American dancer who specialised in non-Western forms of dance to tour with her through Asia in the 1930s. He made his solo debut in New York City on 1 May 1938, at the 46th Street Theatre. In 1939, he was invited to Paris, where he went with Kathak dancer, Sohanlal. and in the same year he made his London debut at the Aldwych Theatre to immediate fame and went on to meet not just Queen Mary, but also made friends with leading figures of the ballet. He returned to India with Ensa during the World War II. After the War, he returned and noted dancer, Nijinsky came to "inspect him" in 1948.

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