Shane Shambhu begins a ten-date tour next month with his funny and candid new solo show Confessions of a Cockney Temple Dancer:

6 February         Norwich Arts Centre
7 February         Lakeside Theatre Colchester
1 March             Stantonbury Theatre Milton Keynes
2 March             The Curve Slough
10 March           Trinity Centre Bristol
15 March           Arts Out West Cumbria
16 March           Highlights Cumbria
23 March           Creative Arts East Suffolk
28 March           Birmingham Hippodrome, Patrick Studio
17 May               National Dance Showcase Bournemouth

In Confessions of a Cockney Temple Dancer Complicité Associate Shane Shambhu uses a unique combination of bharatanatyam and stand-up comedy to share his personal journey from unlikely Indian dance student growing up in London’s East End, to club obsessed ‘rude boy’ and international performer. With finely honed comic timing and sublime dance demonstrations, he switches characters, accents and languages in a heartbeat, telling a story of cultural clash and fusion and de-mystifying the world of classical Indian dance. Watch the trailer.

“Brilliant! Hilarious! Heart-warming! Inspirational! MUST SEE!” The British Theatre Guide 
“A great storyteller, a mercurial trickster with an exuberant love of life and dance” The British Theatre Guide 

Shane Shambhu was born and raised in East Ham among a large extended family from southern India. Named after the hero of a ‘50s Western by his cowboy-loving uncle, his life changed when he was eleven years old and his mother sent to a Master to learn bharatanatyam, a temple dance from her homeland, because he was a “really, really, really … fat kid”. After that, when his friends were playing football, Shane was secretly practising his bharatanatyam movements in a corner of the school yard.

Shane went on to train in bharatanatyam professionally, initially with Pushkala Gopal and Unnikrishnan in East London, and later with Mavin Khoo, Prof. C.V. Chandrasekar and Leela Samson. He danced for several years with Shobana Jeyasingh before deciding to explore other creative avenues, joining Complicité for a spell and working as a collaborator and performer with different companies and artists in theatre and film, and also as a part time comedian.

For more information or to find out how to book the show, please email sarah@stdma.com or go to stdma.com