Kuchipudi

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Kuchipudi (కుచిపుడి) is a classical dance form from Andhra Pradesh, a state of South India. Kuchipudi is the name of a small village in the Divi Taluq of Krishna district that borders the Bay of Bengal and with resident Brahmins practising this traditional dance form, it acquired the present name.

With the dance form attaining perfection by the time of Golconda king Abdul Hassan Tanesha, Kuchipudi brahmins are said to have received 600 acres (2.4 km²) of land as an endowment from Tanesha for the great presentation before him.

Siddhendra Yogi is said to be the first scholar to give it the current form of dance drama. Bhamakalapam is one of his celebrated compositions. He also reserved the art to males by teaching it to young brahmin boys of the village. However, in modern times, the art has been dominated by women.

The performance usually begins with some stage rites, after which each of the character comes on to the stage and introduces him/herself with a daru (a small composition of both song and dance) to introduce the identity, set the mood, of the character in the drama. The drama then begins. The dance is accompanied by song which is typically carnatic music. The singer is accompanied by mridangam (a classical South Indian percussion instrument), violin, flute and the tambura (a drone instrument with strings which are plucked). Ornaments worn by the artists are generally made of a light weight wood called Boorugu.

Some of the well known people in this tradition are Dr. Vempati Chinna Satyam[1], Vedantam Lakshminarayana, Dr. Uma Rama Rao, Tadepalli Perayya, Chinta Krishna Murthy, Padma Sri Vedantam Sathya Narayana Sarma,Mrinalini Sadananda,Sobha Naidu, Pasumarthi Venu Gopala Krishna Sarma,[http://www.rajaradhareddy.com/ Raja Reddy and Radha Reddy, Nilimma Devi [2],Anuradha Nehruand "Hamsa Awardee" Sarala Kumari Ghanta.

The prominence of kuchipudi dance form is not limited to India alone. There are now a number of popular Kuchipudi teachers, choreographers and dancers in North America. Some of them include Sasikala Penumarthi & Revathi Komanduri in Atlanta, Kamala Reddy in Pittsburgh, Ratna Papa in Texas, Jyothi Lakkaraju, Vaidehi Yellai, Himabindu Challa, Madhuri Kishore, and Sunitha Pendekanti in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sandhya Sree Atmakuri in Detroit,Divya Yeluri in New York/New Jersey, Mallika Ramaprasad, Lakshmi Babu, Anuradha Nehru and Mutnuri Yagna in Washington DC.