kuchipudi

Kuchipudi ( KOO-chih-POO-dee) is one of the eight major Indian classical dance forms. It originated in Kuchipudi, a village in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Kuchipudi is a dance-drama performance, with its roots in the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of Natya Shastra (c. 500 BCE—500 CE). It developed as a religious art linked to traveling bards, temples and spiritual beliefs, like all major classical dances of India. Evidence of Kuchipudi's existence in an older version is found in copper inscriptions of the 10th century, and by the 15th century in texts such as the Machupalli Kaifat. Kuchipudi tradition holds that Narahari Tirtha – a sanyassin of Dvaita Vedanta persuasion, and his disciple, an orphan named Siddhendra Yogi, founded and systematized the modern version of Kuchipudi in the 17th century. Kuchipudi largely developed as a Krishna-oriented Vaishnavism tradition, and it is known by the name of Bhagavata Mela in Thanjavur. In the past, an all male troupe performed the traditional Kuchipudi. A dancer in a male role would be in Agnivastra, also known as Bagalbandi, wear a dhoti (a single pleated piece of cloth hanging down from the waist). A dancer in a female role would wear a Sari with light makeup. The Kuchipudi performance usually begins with an invocation. Then, each costumed actor is introduced, their role stated, and they perform a short preliminary dance set to music (daravu). Next, the performance presents pure dance (nritta).¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kuchipudi”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

kuchipudi is form of the classical dances of India, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 8 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶