As Croydon moves towards being Borough of Culture
2023 there will be proposals for performances of Indian music and dance. Many
people will not know that Indians have contributed in many ways to Britain’s
musical culture over the last hundred and more years. Here are some details
about five important contributors: Sarojini Naidu, Imryat Khan, Kaikhosru Sorabji, Ram Gopal and
Vyakarnam
Lakshmipathy.
Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) was a Bengali poet and women's rights campaigner. Croydon's composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor used her A Lovely Little Dream and Sons
of the Sea. She became the first woman President of the
Indian National Congress.
Imryat
Khan
Inayat Rehmat Khan (1882
– 1927) was an Indian classical musician who came to Europe. While in London in
1914 he founded the Sufi Order. In February 1915 some of his music was played
at a concert organised by the National Political League at the Aeolian Hall in
London to raise money for its land and unemployment scheme. (The Times. 19 February 1915. p. 27) The
National Political League (NPL) was founded in 1911 by Mary Adelaide
Broadhurst, who had been the Women’s Freedom League organiser in Liverpool. Its
main objective was to further social and political reforms on a non-party
basis. On 19 March 1913 it had organised a meeting to protest against forcible
feeding of imprisoned suffrage campaigners at Kingsway Hall. Among the
performers at the 1915 concert were Lilian Braithwaite and Eva Moore.
Braithwaite (1873-1948) was the daughter of the Revd John Masterman Braithwaite
who became curate and later vicar of
Croydon. She was educated at Croydon High School. Eva Moore (1868-1955) was
active in the suffrage movement and a founder of the Actresses’ Franchise
League.
Khan’s Sufism emphasised love, harmony, and beauty.
His writings included The Music of Life and
The Mysticism of Sound and Music. He saw harmony as the "music of the
spheres" which linked all mankind and had the ability to transcend one's
spiritual awareness.
The
Music of Life. Omega Press. 1988.
The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat
Inayat Khan. Shambhala Publications. 1996.
His daughter was Noor Inayat Khan who became a
British SOE operative captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis.
Her life can be read about in
Shrabani Basu. Spy Princess: The Life of Noor
Inayat Khan. The History Press.
Gaby Halberstam. Noor
Inayat Khan. A&C Black. 2013.
Kaikhosru Sorabji
Kaikhosru Shapurji
Sorabji, a composer of Parsi heritage, was born in Chingford in Essex on
14 August 1892. His father was a Zoroastrian Parsi civil engineer and his
mother is thought to have been part Sicilian, part Spanish and a soprano. He
spent most of his life in England. He became a prolific composer. He lived in
London and then in South Dorset. His music
began to reach an audience from 1976 promoted by the South African pianist
Yonty Solomon. Sorabji died aged 96. CDs
are available and a book edited by Paul Raport was published in his centenary
year: Sorabji: A Critical Celebration.
There is also a Sorabji Archive, Alistair Hinton being the archivist. For
further details compiled by Alistair Hinton see:
(From my Black & Asian Heritage in the UK ENesletter. No.1. October 2003)
Ram Gopal
Ram
Gopal was born in Bangalore and became a leading exponent and teacher of Indian
classical dance. His lawyer father
discouraged his dancing, so he taught himself accompanied by gramophone
records. He obtained mentoring and financial support and was able to Kathkali and
Dasi Attam Dance. The American dancer La Meri visited Bangalore and invited him
to join her on a tour of the Far East. He then visited America, England and
Europe before returning to India where he opened a dance school in Bangalore.
This finally closed and he spent the war years giving performances for the
troops. After the war he began touring again, presenting a ballet at the
Edinburgh Festival. He performed at Wimbledon Theatre on 21 June 1948. He
eventually settled in London. Rina
Singha partnered Ram Gopal on his European tours & taught at his dance
school.
Kathakali deals with the
struggle between good and evil, based on the heroic ventures of the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana. It involves a fierce battle and the destruction of a demon.
Kathak Dance flourished in the 16th Century. Kathakali has a heavy head-dress (Kiritam), made of wood,
painted red, green, white and gold, inlaid with imitation gemstones. The eyebrows & eyes are emphasised with
heavy black make-up. Heroes have green and villains dark red or black faces. The costumes,
ornaments and movements all suggest the nature of the
character played.
Raghunath Manet, one of his
pupils performed at London’s Globe
Theatre in July 2000, and according to a
member of the team led by me that put together the Merton Black History display
for the North East Community Association. Ram Gopal was in the audience. .
Vyakarnam
Lakshmipathy
Inspired by a Chinese performance in Beijing of
the Indian Bharat Natyam classical dance, Vyakarnam Lakshmipathy (1918-1998)
set up the UK University Music Circuit with the support of his wife Moona, a
veena player. ‘The Circuit brought quality players from Indian to play in
universities, but also to take workshops and give explanatory lecture-demonstrations.
At its height, 30 institutions had bought into it.’ It lasted for 12 years but
had problems because arts funding bodies
‘had still not recognised the needs of music other than western, and universities themselves were
under financial pressure.’
Brought up in South India he obtained a science
degree and worked with the British monitoring wartime Japanese broadcasts to
India. From 1947 he was active in the Indian Labour Forum fighting for workers’
rights. Later he entered the Indian
diplomatic service and then the Engineering Export Promotion Council. He came
to London in 1972 where he retired.
(Obituary by Naseem Khan. The Guardian. 8 September 1998. p. 18)
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