It is a concerted effort to bring all Kuchipudi artistes under one umbrella and is named as ‘International Federation of Kuchipudi artistes' (IFKA) with Vempati Chinna Satyam as its chairman. Maestro Chinna Satyam was brought all the way from Chennai in a wheel chair for the launch of the IFKA recently at Ravindra Bharathi. The Department of Culture, A.P, donated a cheque of Rs. 2lakh, presented by the state culture minister Vatti Vasanthakumar. He also promised more support from the government for its future activities.
The function was attended by Akkineni Nageswara Rao, director K. Viswanath, singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam who gave inspiring speeches in praise of Vempati Chinna Satyam's struggle over years to get Kuchipudi dance the status that it enjoys now.
Later many of Vempati's students were invited to present dances in the cultural part of the event, under the title ‘Guru Parampara'. The dance teams that presented dances were Bengaluru's ‘Natya Vedam' of Manju Bhargavi; ‘Siva Foundation' of Madhavapeddi Murthy of Chennai; ‘Nartana Sala' also of Chennai of Sathyapriya Ramana; ‘Sathyanjali Academy of Kuchipudi Dance' of Cochin of Annapoorna Mohan; Prabha's Dance Academy, Chennai; Deepanjali of Hyderabad of Deepika Reddy; ‘Natya Sadan' of Hyderabad of Rajeswari Parvataraju and ‘Abhinaya Vani Nrithya Niketan' also of Hyderabad run by of Chavali Bala Tripura Sundari. Each of these dances were a treat to watch as the young gurus put their imaginative skills on stage without stepping out of the Kuchipudi tradition. Some of them were quite a thrilling presentation.
