Kuchipudi artiste dances her way to glory

Neelima Kakarlapudi of Visakhapatnam has earned awards & recognition for her Kuchipudi dance performances in India & USA. She has established a dance school in New Jersey.

Neelima Kakarlapudi of Visakhapatnam has done the city proud by propagating the Kuchipudi dance form in New Jersey, where she is currently residing with her family. She has given performances across the USA and has earned the appreciation of connoisseurs.

Ms. Neelima has won awards and recognitions for her dance performances in India and the USA. The Government of the United States granted her Permanent Residency in the US in 2014, in the EB-1 category, given to persons with extraordinary ability in the arts, in recognition of her talent.

Hailing from a family of banking professionals and lawyers, Ms. Neelima studied at Timpany School, BVK Junior College and St. Joseph’s College for Women and obtained a Master’s degree in biotechnology from Andhra University.

Later, she earned a Ph.D in cancer genetics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York, and worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a senior medical/creative writer, while pursuing her professional career in Kuchipudi dance.

Ms. Neelima learnt dance under the tutelage of the renowned Kuchipudi guru the late Pasumarthi Seetharamaiah in Visakhapatnam, and performed as a child artiste in Kuchipudi Yakshaganam, under his guidance. Later, she went on to be a soloist apart from playing major/minor roles in dance ballets. She joined Kuchipudi Kalakshetra, established by the late Padmabhushan Vempati Chinna Satyam, and trained under the guidance of Guru Hari Rama Murthy, its principal, in the technicalities of Kuchipudi solo dance, and the finer nuances under the guidance of Guru Vempati Chinna Satyam.

She received the Government of India’s Department of Culture Scholarship (2001-03) for training in choreographic aspects of Kuchipudi.

Ms. Neelima gave over 600 performances at various places in India and the USA and won the appreciation of audiences. She is inspired by the choreography of Guru Vempati Chinna Satyam, and admires him for his immense contribution for elevating Kuchipudi as one of the major classical dance forms of India. She also shares a wonderful ‘guru-shishya’ bonding with her mentor Guru Hari Rama Murthy.