Kuchipudi, where almost each house has a classical dancer spreading the Indian classical dance across the globe, is yet to be developed as a major rural tourist spot in Andhra Pradesh.

During the 1977 cyclonic storm, the village has lost valuable literature about the evolution of the art and historical documents and archives related to the dance.

“In the village, only senior dance teachers alive are our source of information on the greatness of Kuchipudi in the absence of availability of literature in any form with us”, Akhila Bharata Kuchipudi Natya Kalamandali Founder Secretary P. Kesava Prasad told The Hindu.

Several proposals made to the Tourism department to turn the village into a tourist spot have fallen on deaf ears. The Kuchipudi Library cum Dance School, where a majority of the Kuchipudi dance teachers in India were trained by renowned maestros, is now in a dilapidated state. In 1935, Challapalli Raja Sivaram Prasad funded the library building that has been later turned into dance school by Vedantam Parvateesam Sarma in 1957.

The library portion of the building is now being protected with bamboo mats.

Speaking to The Hindu, some senior artistes said that Kuchipudi village deserves to be announced as a heritage village and must be adopted by the government of Andhra Pradesh to promote the Indian classical dance form.

Disappointment

“Enthusiastic visitors and scholars eager to have a glimpse of the dance form will return with a great disappointment as it looks like having no cultural history at all,” Mr. Prasad added.

In Kuchipudi, not even a tourist guide was deployed by the government authorities to help visitors and show places like houses of the maestros, Vedantam Raghavayya, Vempati China Satyam and so on.

Proposal of beautification of the four-acre village pond adjacent to Sri Ramalingeswara Swami temple has been languishing in a state of neglect for long.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities / by T. Appala Naidu / Kuchipudi (Krishna Dt.)., July 08th, 2014