700 performances and counting

Her movements are like quicksilver and her performances are scintillating. She is an outstanding exponent of Kuchipudi. Lalitha Sindhuri, who has given more than 700 performances, is still enthusiastic and passionate about the dance as she was when she first started. Lalitha was born in 1991 in Amalapuram in East Godavari district. Her father YVGK Prasad is an Andhra Bank employee and her mother is a homemaker. She is an engineering graduate and has completed MA in dance from the Hyderabad Central University. Now, she is doing research on Kuchipudi at the same University.

She is the great granddaughter of renowned Kuchipudi exponent late Vempati Venkata Narayana and a disciple of the legendary Vedantam Satya Narasimha Sastry and Vedantam Venkatachalapathi.“Dance is the way of communication and it helps in enhancing focus and concentration,” Lalitha opines and makes it clear that her education was never affected due to dancing.If she has to perform to a song in an unfamiliar script, Lalitha makes it a point to learn the language. “I listen to the songs that I will be performing at an event while on my way to the venue,” she says.

In spite of studying the dance form for her master’s degree, Lalitha feels there is still a lot to learn from the dance and also about the techniques involved in it. The artiste shares that her most memorable moment was performing along with legends like Sonal Mansingh, Vyjayanthimala and Yamini Krishnamurthy at Chennai. Besides, Lalitha has enthralled the audiences at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, Andhra Kala Samithi in Bhopal, Andhra Association Platinum Jubilee Celebrations at Kolkota, Vanimahal Padmasri Chittur Nagaiah Awards at Chennai, Gajapathi Utsav in Odisha, and many more events.

She has won many awards like Balasri, a national award, from the hands of former President APJ Abdul Kalam in 2005, a Bala Ratna from former chief minister Dr YS Rajasekhar Reddy, a Natya Mayuri in 2009 for a national dance competitions and the Nrithya Bharathi in 2010. The titles of Nritya Kaumudi and Abhinava Rasadhuni were conferred upon her in 2010 and 2011 respectively.The artiste has won applause from a galaxy of artistes including Dr Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Dr C Narayana Reddy, Dr Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, K Viswanath among others.

By Samson Raj