Nyota Inyoka

Nyota Inyoka (1896 – July 1971), sometimes billed as Princess Nyota Inyoka, was a French-Indian dancer and choreographer.

Nyota Inyoka
Nyota Inyoka, from a 1922 publication.
Nyota Inyoka, from a 1922 publication.
Born1896
Pondicherry
Died1971
Paris

Early life

Nyota Inyoka was born in Pondicherry[1] and raised in Paris,[2] the daughter of a French mother and an Indian father, though she was sometimes billed as being "Egyptian", "Persian", or "Cambodian".[3][4][5] Both of her parents were teachers.[6]

Career
Nyota Inyoka, from a 1922 publication.
Nyota Inyoka, from a 1922 publication.

Nyota Inyoka's dances and costumes appealed to a wider Western fascinations with the exotic, ancient, and "oriental", in the 1920s and beyond.[7] She frequently researched her dances in the collections of the Musée Guimet.[1] She danced at the Folies Bergère in 1917,[1] in New York in 1920, and again in Paris in 1921, wearing costumes by designer Paul Poiret. She performed in the United States from 1922 to 1924, where she appeared in vaudeville and gave recitals with Japanese dancer Michio Itō.[8][9] "Little Mme. Nyota Inyoka conjured up historic pictures, with childlike native grace and baby smile, strangely consorted with rapt moods of the East," commented a reviewer in The New York Times, continuing in a similar vein to describe her "cherubic but elastic torso, whirlwind arms and gyrating legs".[10] While in New York, she danced in a program with Anna Pavlova at a costume party hosted by artist Malvina Hoffman in 1924.[11] Sensational reports in the American press described her as haunted, cursed, mysterious; some even posited "death threats" that awaited her in India because of her revealing costumes, presumably to heighten interest in her performances.[12] Inyoka taught dance in Paris for decades, and often performed in Paris and internationally.[13] Sculptor Paul Landowski made a series of small bronze dancing figures based on Nyota Inyoka in 1947.[14]

Personal life

Inyoka died from stomach cancer in 1971, aged 75.[6] Her gravesite is at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[15] Her papers are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.[16] There is a videocassette of Inyoka dancing in the Malvina Hoffman Papers at the Getty Institute.[17]

References
  1. Tessa Jahn, "Cutting into History: The 'Hindu Dancer' Nyota Inyoka's Photomontages" in Christoph Wulf, ed., Exploring Alterity in a Globalized World (Routledge 2016): 187-195. ISBN 9781317331131
  2. "Dancing Princess Educated in Paris". Daily News. 27 April 1924. p. 153. Retrieved 9 April 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "On the Concert Horizon". The New York Times. 18 November 1923. p. X7 – via ProQuest.
  4. Victoria Rose Pass, "Strange Glamour: Fashion and Surrealism in the Years between the World Wars" (PhD diss., University of Rochester 2011): 203. via ProQuest
  5. Cohen, M. (27 October 2010). Performing Otherness: Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905-1952. Springer. pp. 98–99. ISBN 9780230309005.
  6. Robinson, Jacqueline (4 July 2013). Modern Dance in France (1920-1970): An Adventure. Routledge. pp. 90–93. ISBN 9781134396788.
  7. Warren, Vincent (2006). "Yearning for the Spiritual Ideal: The Influence of India on Western Dance 1626–2003". Dance Research Journal. 38 (1–2): 97–114. doi:10.1017/S0149767700007403. ISSN 1940-509X. S2CID 193774298.
  8. Archbald, Anne (November 1923). "The Vanity Box". Theatre Magazine. 38: 68.
  9. "Winter Interludes Which are Instinct with Grace and Rhythm". Vanity Fair. Vol. 21. December 1923. p. 42.
  10. "Gives Eastern Dances; Princess Nyota Inyoka is Greeted by a Brilliant Audience". The New York Times. 25 February 1924. p. 13 – via ProQuest.
  11. "Costume Party Given by Malvina Hoffman". The New York Times. 6 May 1924. p. 21 – via ProQuest.
  12. "Mystery of the Beautiful Indian Princess". The Ogden Standard-Examiner. 25 May 1924. p. 27. Retrieved 8 April 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. Martin, John (19 December 1937). "The Dance: Busy Times". The New York Times. p. 156 – via ProQuest.
  14. "Small statues - Paul Landowski". Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  15. "INKOYA Nyota (1896-1971)". www.appl-lachaise.net. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  16. Fonds Inyoka (Nyota), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des arts du spectacle.
  17. "Hoffman (Malvina) Papers". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
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