Rodin and the Dance of Shiva

In 1913, photos of The Nataraja bronze from the Chennai Museum inspired Auguste Rodin’s text “The Dance of Shiva”. Written at the end of his life, this vision of Shiva, “Lord of actor-dancers”, revealed the underlying links between Rodin’s dance sculptures (1910), the Cambodian dancer drawings, and his private collection of antique Venus and Buddha sculptures and wood carvings from India. Through his androgynous vision of Shiva the cosmic dancer, Rodin invites us not only to a new reading of his work but also opens the door to a new vision of Indian theatre and dance.The connections that he suggests between sculpture, poetry, dance, theatre, music, photography and architecture have a particular contemporary resonance.