Like other classical dance forms in India, Kuchipudi traces its roots to the Sanskrit
Natya Shastra, a foundational treatise on the performing arts. are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues, and the essence of scriptures. The dance-drama tradition in Andhra Pradesh is of ancient origins, and the region is mentioned in the
Natya Shastra. Bharata Muni credits a graceful movement to the Andhra region and discusses it as
Kaishiki vritti. The pre-2nd century CE text calls one raga
Andhri, which is from Andhra. The Andhri, is related to
Gandhari and
Arsabhi, and is discussed in many other 1st millennium Sanskrit texts. Some, state Bruno Nettle and others, place the origins of Kuchipudi to 3rd-century BCE. Dance-drama performance arts related to
Shaivism, in Telugu-speaking parts of South India, are evidenced in 10th-century copper inscriptions, and these were called or . The medieval era dance-drama performance artists were
Brahmins. This art was likely adopted by the musical and dancing Bhakti traditions of
Vaishnavism which grew in the 2nd millennium, whose devotees were called in Andhra region and in Tamil region of south India. In Andhra, this performance art evolved into Kuchipudi, while in Tamil Nadu it became known as . According to Saskia Kersenboom, both the Telugu Kuchipudi and Tamil Bhagavata Mela are strongly related to the classical Hindu dance tradition of found in Karnataka, all three involve Carnatic music, but these dance-drama traditions have differences such as in costumes, structure, interpretation and creative innovations. To implant bhakti among layman he is credited with organizing Bhagavata Melas throughout the nights and adapting many dance forms from the Srimad Bhagavatha Puranas. Vaishnavism received a big boost in the Kalinga regions of Andhra and Orissa due to the efforts of Narahari Tirtha, Sri Jagannatha Tirtha and his disciples, the message of Bhakti was percolated through the masses via Kuchpudi and The Bhagavata Melas of Sri Narahari Tirtha and his disciples. According to Manohar Varadpande, the Kuchipudi dance emerged in the late 13th century, when
Ganga rulers from
Kalinga were patrons of performance arts based on the 12th-century Sanskrit scholar
Jayadeva, particularly the
Gita Govinda. Tirtha Narayanayati authored
Sri Krishna Leela Tarangini and introduced sequences of rhythmic dance syllables at the end of the cantos, he wrote this work as a libretto for a dance-drama. When Sidhyendra Yogi finished the play, he had trouble finding suitable performers. According to the tradition, Sidhyendra requested and the villagers agreed to perform the play once a year, and this came to be known as Kuchipudi. The region saw wars and political turmoil with Islamic invasions and the formation of Deccan Sultanates in the 16th century. With the fall of Vijayanagara Empire and the destruction of temples and Deccan cities by the Muslim army around 1565, musicians and dance-drama artists migrated south, and Tanjore kingdom records suggest some 500 such Kuchipudi artist families arrived from Andhra, were welcomed and granted land by the Hindu king Achyutappa Nayak, a settlement that grew to become modern
Melattur near Tanjore (also called
Thanjavur). Not everyone left the old Andhra village of Kuchipudi, and those remaining became the sole custodians of its tradition in Andhra. Kuchipudi declined and was a dying art in 17th-century Andhra, Aurangzeb banned public performances of all music and dance arts, along with ordering the confiscation and destruction of musical instruments in Indian subcontinent under control of his
Mughal Empire.
Colonial rule period After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal Empire collapsed, Hindu rebellion sprouted in many parts of India, including the Deccan region. In the second half of the 18th century, during this period of political turmoil, the colonial Europeans arrived, the
Madras Presidency was formed by the East India Company officials and became a part of the
British Empire. Andhra was a part of the Madras Presidency. During the colonial era, Hindu arts and traditions such as dance-drama were ridiculed. Christian missionaries and British officials stereotyped and denigrated dancers, calling Indian classical dances as evidence of a tradition of "harlots, debased erotic culture, slavery to idols and priests". Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The anti-dance camp accused the various classical Indian dance forms as a front for prostitution, while revivalists questioned the constructed histories by the colonial writers. In 1910, the
Madras Presidency of the British Empire altogether banned temple dancing. Kuchipudi, which was traditionally staged at night on a stage attached to a Hindu temple, was impacted and like all classical Indian dances declined during the colonial rule period. After the ban, many Indians protested against the caricature and cultural discrimination, launching their efforts to preserve and reinvigorate their culture. Due to these efforts from 1920s onwards, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance.
Modern period The three influential figures in Kuchipudi, during the first half of twentieth century, were Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastri, Vempati Venkatanarayana Sastri and Chinta Venkataramayya. The historic All India Dance Seminar, organized by the national arts organization
Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1958, thrust Kuchipudi to the national stage. Some Western dancers joined the Indians in preserving dance. The American dancer Esther Sherman, for example, moved to India in 1930, learnt Indian classical dances, changed her name to Ragini Devi, and joined the movement to save and revive classical Indian dances. Her daughter Indrani Bajpai (
Indrani Rahman) learnt and became a celebrated Kuchipudi dancer. The public performances of Kuchipudi by
Indrani Rahman and
Yamini Krishnamurti outside of Andhra region, created wider enthusiasm and more interest through new students and the expansion of Kuchipudi as a creative performance art both within India and internationally. == Repertoire ==