Amala Shankar Biography 
Amala Shankar is a legendary dancer, best known as the wife and dance partner of Uday Shankar, an Indian dancer and choreographer known for fusion forms. She has performed across the world alongside Uday Shankar, and they remained a popular dancing couple for many years. Famous musician Ananda Shankar and famous Bengali actress Mamata Shankar are the children of this legendary dancing duo. World famous sitar player Ravi Shankar is her brother-in-law. Famous contemporary Tanusree Shankar is her daughter-in-law.
Apart from doing stage performances with her husband, she has also acted in his movie, Kalpana (1948) whose main theme was dance. It’s the single directorial venture of her husband, and Uday Shankar and Amala Shankar played lead roles in this Hindi film. But Kalpana did not do well at the box office. But she became the youngest film star at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2012 she re-visited Cannes again.
Her maiden name is Amala Nandy. She was born on June 27, 1919. She went to the International Colonial Exhibition in Paris at the age of 11, when she met her future husband Uday Shankar for the first time. She joined Uday Shankar's dance troupe at this age and performed across the world. Uday Shankar proposed her in 1939, when she was 20 years old and they got married in 1942. They had a good age gap of 19 years. The couple had two children - Ananda Shankar and Mamata Shankar.
Though they remained best dancing couple for many years, Uday Shankar got romantically involved with a young girl of his troupe, and produced Chandalika without Amala. A drift occurred between the two and they lived separately during his last years. Amala is still active in her art field though she is 97 right now.
Published: N/A
Updated: July 09, 2016
