Kuchipudi dance is named after the village of its birth, Kuchela Puram or Kuseelavapuri in Andhra Pradesh. The Kuseelavas (or Kuchigallu) were groups of actors going from village to village. Kuchipudi is the colloquial form of the Sanskrit term ‘Kuseelavapuri’.
Kuchipudi dance form may be traced to the dance-dramas enacted by brahmins in temples. It was Siddhendra Yogi who, in the 14th/15th centuries, inspired the revival of Kuchipudi which had faded into obscurity. He composed the Bhama Kalapam which has now become a part and parcel of the Kuchipudi repertoire.
The Vijayanagara kings patronized the dance form as did the Golconda rulers after them. Some of the leading families of Kuchipudi dancers were given land shares in the village. Gurus of these families have preserved and handed the art traditions down the generations. It was only in the last 9 or 10 decades that women were introduced to this art form. Kuchipudi, however, remained confined to remote village temples of Andhra Pradesh till the early twentieth century when Balasaraswathi and Esther Sherman (Ragini Devi) helped to bring it out of obscurity.
Indrani Rehman played a pioneering role in popularizing the dance form. The strictly male preserve was brought to the people by famous female dancers—Yamini Krishnamurthi, Swapnasundari and Shobha Naidu.
Kuchipudi in its present form is the result of the vision of stalwarts like Vempati Chinna Satyam and the late Vedantam Laxminarayana Shastry. Kuchipudi is characterized by fast rhythms and fluid movements, creating a unique blend of control and abandon, strength and delicacy.
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