Astad Deboo – An Icon of Contemporary Indian Dance

A biography of Astad Deboo, the father of Indian Contemporary Dance, has been written by his lifelong friend Ketu Katrak, Professor Emerita of drama at the University of California, Irvine. A fellow Zoroastrian from the city of Bombay, she was first a family friend before her own scholarly journey into drama, dance and the arts. Astad Deboo passed away on 10 December 2020, aged seventy-three, leaving behind legions of friends and admirers and an incomparable dance legacy. Deboo’s family turned to their trusted friend Ketu Katrak to become the official biographer.

What is Astad Deboo’s dance legacy? In a nutshell: it is creating a space where none existed for a form of dance that is personal, that has to be created as it does not rely on received repertoire, that uses abstract, non-narrative movement, manipulates space and design and is performed to eclectic music. 

The book in four parts: the dancer’s family background, early years, his travels and friendship groups; early works, dancing to Dhrupad vocals, puppetry and developing his signature style; choreography with marginalised communities; and lastly collaborations with artists in India and beyond.

I would like to approach this review as a guide for dance career aspirants on that rocky journey into a uncertain future. What lessons can they draw from Astad’s life?

Foremost a sense of self-belief through a period when you alone know your potential. When Astad in his twenties started creating and performing short pieces, there was no context for his work, which was outside the canon of Indian classical dance. There was no way for audiences to interpret his dance or even vocabulary with which to describe it. He literally had to shock audiences into a reaction (he joked half-seriously), whether by letting hot wax drop into his hands or plunge a syringe into his body depicting a crazed drug addict! Such literal expressions were of course early attempts, gauche perhaps, but they demonstrated the dancer’s laser-like focus and commitment. 

Second is the importance of continuous training and exposure to multiple dance styles. Astad was first introduced to kathak (Guru Prahlad Das), in the small town of Jamshedpur attending classes with his two sisters for a period of eight years. Later in his twenties, on the suggestion of dance critic Sunil Kothari he trained in kathakali with Guru E Krishna Panicker in two phases. This training no doubt gave technical rigour, body strength and control to his dance. The rasa element again for which Astad was known was another gift from his kathakali which uses the facial muscles, eyes and eyebrows to great effect. In terms of Western contemporary dance Astad took classes in the Jose Limon technique in New York and with Pilobolus Company in Connecticut where he was exposed to the ideas of exaggeration and contortion (far removed from conventional ideas of beauty). Other influences were Kabuki form that resonated with him, observed in Japan and a cocktail of other dance styles.

Finding your voice as an artist through continuous explorations and peeling the layers of the onion. One of the collaborators that opened up the stage for Astad was architect Ratan Batliboi, the designer of Basics, a giant triangle and a cube through which Astad moved that dramatised lines and shapes. The use of fabric and props (threading his way through chairs in one piece) became integral to Astad’s work, which became increasingly visually stunning whether he placed himself on battlement of Meheranga Fort or allowed his figure to be dwarfed by the giant puppets of Dadi Pudumjee. 

 Astad found the allied field of theatre also fertile ground for experimentation. His work with Sunil Shanbag and Satyadev Dubey, both theatre directors honed his dramatic skills, sometimes acting himself other times teaching movement to actors. He created Ladri Ka Ravan, a piece based on a poem for the Khajuraho Festival in 2000, satirising politicians even arriving in a flashing-light police vehicle! Visual impact and drama once again, Astad’s signature.

The continuous exploration extended to Astad use of music and soundscape. He was deeply drawn to dhrupad and found that he could improvise to it, each vocal stretch gamak illustrated through gesture and movements. His chakkars also became famous as he devised a unique method of maintaining a back bend while turning. He had earlier worked with sarod player Brij Narayan who commented that when Astad came to his room and improvised to his playing, the dancer used space and props that made him see his room with new eyes. The book is full of such insightful episodes of the dancer’s life.

Spreading your wings to embrace multiple communities was another hallmark of Astad’s work which won him students, admirers, advocates and funders. He worked with students of  deaf schools in India and the US, finding a way of teaching through counting beats; with the street children of the Salaam Balak Trust and with Manipuri dancers who had been left out of the explosion of popularity experienced by bharatanatyam and kathak styles which represent geographic centre of south and north India (Manipur lies on India’s North-Eastern borders). Another iconic image from this period is of Astad firmly rooted on the ground with Manipuri drummers airborne forming a halo around the dancer. Astad found a way of honouring the chola drummers who also framed him in performance and extended his own journey in dance.

Astad understood the importance of making and keeping friends. When you first start out, who will come to watch you but your friends? Astad sensed that and the author recalls the story of Astad carrying a suitcase-supply of birthday cards when on an extended trip to Europe with a thick diary with over a thousand names, addresses and phone numbers. He needed to keep his own ‘mailing list’. In time, Astad gained sponsorship from institutions such a BNP Parabolas banking group, but initially it was only the foreign cultural institutions that supported him like the Goethe Institute, British Council and the Alliance Francaise.

Astad also understood the importance of giving back and set up the Astad Deboo Foundation to support dancers from marginalised communities. During the Covid lockdown Astad personally supported several dance families. 

Astad trod a lonely road of being a male dancer in a sector dominated by female performers, of being gay in an era when ‘coming-out’ was unknown and of taking-up a genre of dance unknown to audiences in the nineteen-seventies when he first started out. (Attakalari under Jayachandran was set up in 1991 and Gati Forum under Mandeep Raiky in 2000). The support from his parents and family was unwavering. But in the end, it was his commitment to dance, his own artistic vision and undiminished creative fire that kept him dancing and making dance till the end. A year before he died, I saw a short film he was creating on-line depicting the exodus of workers from the cities in the Covid epidemic. It was gut-wrenching.

 13 July 2025 will be Astad Deboo’s seventy-eighth birth anniversary. Thanks to the author Ketu Katrak, the artist's legacy has been captured and made available for dancers and audiences.They will draw great strength and inspiration from the extraordinary life of this pioneer of Contemporary Indian dance.