Ram Gopal, 1912-

Ram Gopal, 1912(?)-2003, was a dancer, choreographer and teacher. Born in Bangalore to a Rajput father and a Burmese mother, he was fascinated by dance from a child. While still a boy he gave his first performance at a party given by the Yuvaraja of Mysore.

Despite the disapproval of his father he was trained in classical Indian dance forms of Kathakali, Bharatra Natya and Manipuri, and travelled and studied, visiting remote villages to research Hindu dance. Before the Second World War Gopal travelled the world with dance companies. This included tours of the UK, in company with dancers of Kathakali and Kathak style, and Javanese and Balinese dancers. During the war, he was in India, where he performed for ENSA, and reopened his dance school in Bangalore.

In 1947 he returned to the UK with a new company, and undertook more training in Kathak and the style of Bharata Natyam. Gopal went on to tour UK, Europe, USA, and India. In India he also lectured and demonstrated dance at Sanskrit universities. After the war, he appeared in Hollywood epics such as “The Purple Plain,” 1954, and “Elephant Walk,” 1954, for which he choreographed the dance sequences. Gopal wrote 2 books at this time, “Indian Dancing,” 1951 and “Rhythm in the heavens,” his memoirs, in 1957. In the 1960s he married Edith Alexander, who died in 1969.

Gopal wanted Eastern and Western dance forms to work together, for example with ballet. In the 1960s he worked with the Harlequin Ballet Company, teaching Indian folk dance. His most famous ballets were “Dances of India,” “Legend of the Taj Mahal,” and “Dance of the Setting Sun.” In 1960 he danced a duet which he had choreographed with the ballerina Alicia Markova. He tried to found a “School of Classical Indian dancing” in London, but this not successful. In 1988 he went on his last tour, to the USA. This he found exhausting, and he retired. After living in Venice, and France, he moved to England, where he spent his last years in a nursing home in Surrey, and died in 2003.

From the guide to the Ram Gopal Collection, 1930s-2004, (Special Collections, Brunel University Library)