Peeking into the history of this intense and dramatic universe, one often ends up wondering: Is it out of abject poverty alone that stunning creativity flowers? A Homer-like literary genius emerges?
Is it that indignation alone can ignite the pursuit of mastery
over artistry? Great characters, like Chanakya, get shaped? Is it that paskho, and penthos a must for owning
creativity?
Is it that mastery over the art born only from the struggle
between the ‘light’ and the ‘darkness’—struggle between despair and hope?
That’s what indeed appears to be, when one looks at the
journey of Vempati China Satyam—the Maestro of Kuchipudi dance, who passed away
peacefully in Chennai on July 29.
When China Satyam—having born into a family of dancers at
Kuchipudi village in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh, the very birth place
of Kuchipudi dance form, on October 15, 1929, and having lost his father at the
age of nine, as his mother was struggling to manage the family consisting of
four daughters, besides China Satyam and herself—true to the family tradition went
to learn dance from a guru in the village, who incidentally, happened to be a
relative of him, he turned him away saying: “Your face isn’t suitable for dance, go and learn some other profession to eke out
a living.” But to his fortune, the dejected lad was picked up by another guru
in the village, Tadepalli Papayya Sastry, who started teaching him dancing.
Yet the streak of dejection that he suffered from the
indignation heaped upon him by his relative-cum-Guru of dance at that age of innocence
continued to haunt him till at least he attained the age of eighteen. As the quirk
of fate would have it, at that point of life, he could unshackle himself from
the past, and look at the future with a newfound hope, aspiration for something
yet not clearly defined, but sure he was, that he must do something anew in the
dance form that his village is known for. It was then he recalled the names of
his relatives, Vedantam Raghavaiah and Vempati Peda Satyam, who by then had
settled in the cinema-field in Madras.
He at once decided to go to Madras and try is luck there. 
At the age of eighteen, Chinna Satyam left his village and
reportedly walked all the way to Madras—a distance of more than 350 miles—and
joined his cousin, Vempati Peda Satyam. But Peda Satyam was not in a position
to really help him out. Nor did he have time to quench the thirst of China
Satyam for mastering Kuchpudi dance. Inspired by the dance performance of
Kamala Lakshman, and aspiring to acquire such perfection in his dance form,
Kuchipudi, China Satyam started searching for a suitable Guru. That landed him
at the doorsteps of Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastry, a known exponent of ‘Abhinayam’, the art of expression and
by then a recognized renaissance teacher of Kuchipudi dance.
Encouraged by Sastry garu, China Satyam practiced the dance
with more devotion. Simultaneously, he started reading Shastras—Natyashastra of
Bharatamuni, Natyavedam by Jammalamadaka,
Abhinayadarpanam, etc.—to learn the
finer aspects of dance.
Meanwhile, to earn means to keep his body and soul together,
China Satyam, working as an assistant to Vempati Peda Satyam and Vedantam Raghavaiah,
choreographed dance for many songs in Telugu films. Later, choreographing
dances for the film, Parvatikalyanam,
independently, he earned appreciation from the cine-pundits.
In 1957, at the recommendation of BN Reddy, Viswodaya
College, Kavali, approached China Satyam to help their students present a dance
program. He choreographed the dance-drama, Srikrishnaparijatam,
penned by Bhujangaraya Sarma, a lecturer of that college. Then in 1961, in
association with the same Bhujangaraya Sarma as scriptwriter and Sangeeta Rao
as music director, he presented Ravindranath Tagore’s Chandalika as a dance-drama in Telugu. In 1962, he choreographed
the Rupakam, Ksheerasagaramadhanam penned by Krishna Sastry and it won many
laurels.
And, that’s it: there was no looking back since then. In 1963,
he established the Kuchipudi Art Academy in Madras with 40 students. It grew in
strength over the years. Being a teacher rooted deeply in Shastras, with a perfect knowledge of Laya and Tala, capable of
singing and being innovative, and above all being able to teach in a way that motivates
learners to learn, he produced many dancers of excellence in Kuchipudi art form,
notable among them being: Shobha Naidu, Hema Malini, Jaya Lalitha, Bala, Padma,
Prabha, Manju Bhargavi, etc.
Moving away from the tradition of no solo performance in Kuchipudi
dance, China Satyam, with his creativity and innovation, transgressing the
boundaries defined by the traditionalists, composed and choreographed more than
180 solo items. In association with writer, Bhujangaraya Sarma and music director,
Sangeeta Rao, he had also choreographed 15 dance-dramas. Suffice to say that over a period Vempati China Satyam garu, with his relentless efforts, had become an institution by himself.
As an innovator par excellence, he took Kuchipudi dance to
the world-stage. And having carved a permanent place for it in the world of
arts and thus having fulfilled his childhood mission of reforming and rehabilitating "the rustic, robust and yet the lively form" of Kuchipudi dance that he had inherited into a classical form which today's viewers can appreciate , China Satyam garu, withdrawing himself from the center
stage, has gone to his heavenly abode.
grk
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