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THE KUCHIPUDI DANCE
BY A. S. RAMAN
The purist is apt to reject the term Kuchipudi as a misnomer. He fancies, wrongly of course, that it is used out of context. It is. And yet it is not. He feels that Kuchipudi being the name of a small village becomes a misnomer when applied to the dance form popularly known by that name, but recognized by scholars only as a mere regional version of the classical school Bharata Natyam. The place referred to no doubt is a small village a mere cluster of houses near Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, as primitive or as progressive as the rest of rural India, with the significant difference that at Kuchipudi the Brahmins still command respect from the other castes though, by tradition and training, they pursue a very non-Brahmanical profession Dancing, which to them is more a form of worship than a mere medium of expression.
The term, Kuchipudi, if you ask me, is not a misnomer, because, by usage, it has begun to mean a school of dancing that is at once classical, creative and communicative with a distinctive feel and flavor. Kathak and Hindustani music have their gharanas (Lucknow, Jaipur, etc.). But Bharata Natyam and Karnatak music have none. At any rate none clearly identifiable; Tanjore, Pandanallur, Mysore, Melattur and Kuchipudi are perhaps the nearest parallels. Of these Kuchipudi has, possibly, the sharpest image, as it continues to be the home of a vigorous style of dancing which represents the concept of total theater at its best.
By now, Kuchipudi doubtless will have become an overworked cliché in the critic's stock of jargon. It is used for describing any sloppy, sexy and South Indian dance. It is almost a term of disparagement. The sort of intellectual resistance that the critic offers is indeed most unfortunate, because it damages the image of a great discipline and art-form. The popular notion that Kuchipudi is only a coarser version of Bharata Natyam is of course wrong. It is clearly the duty of informed critics and dedicated artistes to emphasize that Kuchipudi has an identity of its own. It is predominantly lasya and as in the case of Kathakali, which is primarily tandava, only men are allowed to perform it. Why not women ? "But why ?" counters Vedantam Satyam, one of the finest exponents of the Kuchipudi dance today. He continues: My elder daughter says: Naanna don't appear in a male role. 'Even Lord Vishnu had to assume the form of a woman in order to entice the demons. Couldn't he have sent down to the earth one of those apsaras ? He engaged their services only to entice poor rishis'. When man decides to impersonate woman, he can be, believe me, devastating".
However one can't be dogmatic these days about the propriety or otherwise of women performing the Kuchipudi dance. For a number of women trained by Guru Vempati Chinna Satyam and one or two others have distinguished themselves in this exacting genre of classical art form. The most outstanding ones are: Yamini Krishnamurti, Sobha Naidu, Shanta Rao, Chandrakala, Ritha Devi, Hemamalini and Swapnasundari, all trained by Guru Vempati Chinna Satyam.
Today, no Bharata Natya repertoire is complete without the inclusion of one or two Kuchipudi numbers. The two schools are only superficially similar. Kuchipudi is certainly close to Bharata Natyam. But in style and sensibility it has an accent of its own. The increasing popularity of this distinctively Andhra dance form is due mainly to its sensuous Satvikaabhinayam and succulent Vachikabhinayam. Guru Vempati Chinna Satyam, the founder-director of the prestigious Kuchipudi Art Academy, Madras, is in my opinion, the most authoritative populariser of this exquisite art form.
How precisely is the Kuchipudi dance different from Bharata Natyam ? As has been already mentioned earlier, the Kuchipudi style in its purest form, is identified totally with male dancers. They not only dance but sing and even speak, in fact the vachikabhinayam is as important as the angikabhinayam. In the Kuchipudi style, there is no pure dance unconnected with a story. In Bharata Natyam, there is provision for such abstractions. The Kuchipudi dance is primarily a narrative art form. In Bharata Natyam, the emphasis is on nritta (footwork), which is firm, precise and sharply defined, while in the Kuchipudi style, the emphasis being on abhinaya and natya, the nritta element is only one of the constituents of the total theatre of the yakshagana genre to which the Kuchipudi technique basically belongs. Also, I feel Kuchipudi style is older by at least three centuries than Bharata Natyam as we are familiar with it today, its revival in its present form dating from only the Tanjore Court under the Maratha rulers of the 19th century. Because of its affinity with the Yakshagana style, the Kuchipudi technique has in it some basic elements of folk art (Desi); its primeval vigour, its unsophisticated directness and its exquisitely earthy sensuousness clearly are the result of the impact of folk forms on it. Broadly, Bharata Natyam, as we know it today, had its origin in the Court while the Kuchipudi style had its in the street.
As the Kuchipudi dance dramas represent a happy synthesis of the folk and classical idioms, the postures are less rigid, and there is greater emotion behind the action. Naturally the gesture and the movements have a characteristic freedom and fluidity. While a Bharata Natya recital conforms to a set pattern, similar to that of a concert of Karnatak music. a performance in the Kuchipudi technique has an element of surprise, because the tone and tenor vary with the theme which as a rule, has a narrative function. Incidentally it is only in the repertoire of the Kuchipudi dance dramas, that the Satyabhama motif symbolizing the assertive Adwaita concept of the Jeevatma identifying itself with the Paramathma reccurs so frequently. All the Kuchipudi dance dramas and sabdams have an undercurrent of profound mysticism, because their original purpose was to propagate the Bhakti cult among the illiterate masses. The Bharata Natya compositions, being associated mainly with the elite, are comparatively sophisticated.
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