Urmimala Sarkar Munsi is Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Her research interests include the role of Anthropology in critical dance studies; gender, materiality and lived experience in dance; contemporary choreography; and performance documentation. Urmimala's previous publications include Moving Space: Women in Dance (2018, co-edited with Aishika Chakraborty), Engendering Performance: Indian Women Performers Searching for Identity (2010, co-authored with Bishnupiya Dutt), Traversing Tradition: Celebrating Dance in India (2010, co-edited with Stephanie Burridge), and the edited collection Dance: Transcending Borders (2008).

Chapter 1 Uday Shankar and Indian Dance History.- Chapter 2 Modern Dance? Placing Shankar's Transculturality in Colonial South Asia.- Chapter 3 Dancing 'Oriental' Masculinity: Uday Shankar and his Experiments in Modern Dance.- Chapter 4 An attempt at creating a modern institution.- Chapter 5 Beyond the Proscenium with Dance, Magic, and Film.- Chapter 6 The Illusive Legacy.