Tirupati: Kuchipudi dancers enthral audience

Tirupati: The audience in Mahati auditorium here had a spectacular feast of a series of cultural programmes on the second day of 'Aalapana', a music and dance festival, on Tuesday.

Around 7,000 artistes from both Telugu states are taking part in four-day programme being conducted jointly by 'AP Janapada Vruthi Kalakarula Sangham' (APJVKS) and city-based 'Annamayya Kalkshetram'.

The programs started at 9 am with the performance of classical Kuchipudi dance by Kallakuri Sirisha troupe from Visakhapatnam and continued till 3pm where eight Kuchipudi performances organised.

All the troupes, including Aruna Srinivas troupe from Srikakulam, Jyothi Reddy troupe from Hyderabad, C Suryaprasad troupe from Anantapur, Soujanya Rajan from Hyderabad, Rupa Madabhushi from Visakhapatnam, Kanakadurga Padarthi , Swarjyalakshmi Pulipaka, Nagasekhar troupes from Hyderabad performed Kuchipudi, leaving audience in devotional bliss.

Later, S Muniratnam from Tirupati played Nadaswaram with which the session ended.

In the evening, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) director Dr Vengamma who attended as the chief guest for the evening session said age old folk arts, which now gradually disappearing, needed to be protected.

Reminiscing her childhood, she said there were times folk arts were the only entertainment in villages for any function or ceremony but now they were waning gradually.