Hyderabad|India|February'2009: The Department of Dance, Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Arts, Fine Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad is organizing a one day Colloquium on Kuchipudi to commemorate completion of 50 years of the 1959 seminar on Kuchipudi dance, organized by Andhra Pradesh Sangeet Natak Akademi at Hyderabad on Feb 28th and March 1st.

The seminar is being organized as a sequel to a seminar at Delhi in 1958, the first dance seminar organized by the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi, in which Kuchipudi was not included in the evening performance, even though a slot was allotted for one lecture-demonstration by Sri Vissa Appa Rao in the morning. This caused deep consternation among the artists and benefactors of Kuchipudi and as a result, they got together to establish the classical status of the art form through this seminar.

Among several other positive outcomes, this seminar has paved way not only to establish Kuchipudi as ‘classical’, but also in institutionalizing Kuchipudi form by starting training centers at Eluru, Gudivada and Vijayawada which in-turn facilitated its wide-spread.

The University of Hyderabad is celebrating the Golden Jubilee of this event from 10.00 am this Sunday, 1st March, 2009, at the Conference Hall of Ravindra Bharathi. The colloquium will be attended by illustrious Gurus, scholars and performing artists like Prof. Nataraj Ramakrishna, Dr. Modali Nagabhushan Sarma, Guru Sri Pasumarti Venugopala Krishna Sarma, Dr. Sunil Kothari, Dr. Pappu Venugopal Rao, Smt. Leela Venkataraman, Dr. Uma Rama Rao, Sri Vedantam Radhe Shyam, Sri Pasumarthy Keshava Prasad and others.

There would be a screening of the recorded excerpts of the 1959 seminar from the archives of Central Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, the first time after the event in 1959 and as such assumes historical significance. This colloquium will be preceeded by garlanding the statue of Sri Siddendra Yogi on Tank Bund by the artists and others and will be continued in Ravindra Bharathi, Hyderabad.