As night after night I watched parts of these symbolic dance dramas of Hindu mythology, fascinated by them, I searched for a formula whereby they might be made palatable and understandable to American audiences. I was certain that, as they were being danced in Paris, to music strange and unfamiliar to Western ears, going on for hours on end, the American public was not ready for them, and would not accept them. I put the matter straight to Shan-Kar. I told him I wanted to bring him and his art to America. He told me he wanted to come. Possessed of a fine scholarship, a magnificent three-fold talent as producer, choreographer, and dancer-musician, he also possessed to a remarkable degree a sense of theatre showmanship and an intuition that enabled him to grasp and quickly understand the space and time limitations of the non-oriental theatre. Shan-Kar’s association with Pavlova, together with his own fine intelligence, made his transition from the dance theatre of the Orient to an adaptation of it acceptable to the West a comparatively simple task for him. His success in America exceeded my most optimistic predictions. Until the arrival of Shan-Kar, America had not been exposed to very much of the dance of India. Twenty years before, the English woman known as Roshanara had had a vogue in esoteric circles with her adaptations of the dances of India and the East. On the other hand, the male dancing of India was virtually unknown. As presented by Shan-Kar, this was revealed in an expressive mime, with an emphasis on the enigmatic face, the flat hand, using the upper part of the body as the chief medium of expression, together with the unique use of the neck and shoulders, not only for expression, but for accentuation of rhythm. New, also, to our audiences were the spread knees, a type of movement exclusive to the male Indian dancer. Here was an art and an artist that seemingly had none of the conventional elements of a popular success. About him and his presentations there was nothing spectacular, nothing stunning, nothing exciting. Colour was there, to be sure; but the dancing and the general tone of the entertainment was all of a piece, on a single level, soothing, and with that elusive, almost indefinable quality: the serenity of the East. Our associations, save for a brief period of mistrust on my part, have always been pleasant. In addition to the original tour of 1932, I brought him back in the season 1936-1937, and again in 1938-1939. The war, of course, intervened, and I was unable to bring him again until the season 1949-1950. At the outbreak of the war, through the benefaction of the Elmhirst Foundation of Dartington Hall, England, an activity organized by the former Dorothy Straight, Shan-Kar was enabled to found a school for the dance and a center for research into Hindu lore, which he set up in Benares. One outcome of this research center was the production of a motion picture film dealing with this lore.