Kum Uma Sharma

Uma Sharma is one of the foremost exponents of the Kathak form of Indian classical dance. Kathak is based on devotional Krishna poetry of the medieval centuries and the highly cultivated court poetry of the 18th and 19th centuries which celebrated "shringara", the sentiment of love.

Uma Sharma's contribution to Kathak - in fact to India dance - has been marked by her innovative programmes and search for the roots of the dance. Uma has regained for Kathak its old glory and restored to it the lost frontiers of poetry and the tradition of abhinaya. She has also kept alive the folk tradition of Raas Leela from Brindaban, and presented them in a new way on many a stage in the temples around Delhi. As a performer her forte is abhinaya, the interpretative and expressional body language which transforms the poetic images into rich visual images of great pictorial charm. Her body attitudes and movement of arms evoke the contours of miniature painting, and with her soft, rhythmic foot-work, she writes love poems on the stage. In Kathak the musical component is highly developed. Uma herself sings the compositions for expressional numbers, which enables her to create a matching fluidity of movement.

Uma Sharma has been trained by the greatest gurus of the Kathak tradition such as Shambhu Maharaj of the Lucknow gharana, who set unmatched standards in the art of abhinaya, and Sunder Prasad of the Jaipur gharana who emphasised rhythmic footwork and its permutations. Uma Sharma has sought to achieve a creative fusion of the two.

Having mastered the presentation of traditional items, she has widened and enriched the repertoire of Kathak by composing new dance numbers and full length dance-dramas on a variety of themes. Her dance created Stree (Woman), has been greatly admired for its powerful thematic content and artistic presentation. As a one-woman exposition Stree gives Kathak a new dimension for its highly emotive thrust in depicting the position of Woman down the centuries and her search for an independent identity.

Uma has performed all over the country and participated in many a national and international festival. She has been on performance tours to USSR, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada, Middle East, Japan and China, both on invitation from organizations abroad; and, as a representative of Indian dance sponsored by the Department of Culture and the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.

She has won the prestigious National Awards, such as the Padma Bhushan, Padma Shree, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award.

Uma Sharma runs her own School of Music and Dance in the capital and has trained a whole new generation of younger dancers.