December 22, 2025: The Saturday evening Kuchipudi Dance show by Artist Yamini Reddy at Shilpa Kala Vedika unfolded like a quiet invocation. As the lights softened and the first movements took shape, Surya – Tvam Surya Pranamamyaham revealed itself as absorbing spectacle, a carefully composed meditation on light, time, and origin. Kuchipudi dancer Yamini’s work invited the packed audience to slow down, to watch creation being imagined through rhythm, gesture, and breath.
Before each sequence unfolded, there was a gentle, almost reverential prelude by Padma Bhushan awardees and Kuchipudi luminaries Raja and Radha Reddy, measured, graceful, and unhurried. These moments felt like thresholds, guiding the audience into the emotional and philosophical landscape of Surya. Their presence was a true tribute Kuchipudi legacy, as living practice, the finest tradition of Indian classical art breathing quietly before giving way to new thought.
Yamini Reddy Uses Kuchipudi to Ask an Ancient Question: Where Did It All Begin?
As the performance progressed, Yamini Reddy’s vision revealed itself in layers. “If the Sun is the Paramatma, all beings on Earth are connected to that supreme soul,” her idea seemed to echo through the choreography. The dancers responded to this philosophy with restraint and clarity, allowing form and meaning to grow together. Each sequence felt less like a narrative chapter and more like an inquiry, into light, movement, and the shared pulse of existence.
The live orchestra infused the stage with a palpable vitality. Vocals rose and receded like invocations, while rhythm and melody wove an enchanting fusion that respected classical roots yet welcomed contemporary textures. The music did not accompany the dance so much as converse with it, lending energy to moments of expansion and tenderness to passages of introspection. At times, the resonance of voice and percussion felt like an extension of the dancers’ breath.
Yamini’s own presence remained anchored and contemplative. “This performance is a culmination of years of thought, research, and artistic collaboration,” she had said, and that depth was visible in the way each movement appeared considered, never ornamental. Working alongside her parents, she shaped a work that felt deeply personal, yet generously open to interpretation.
One of the most affecting moments arrived toward the conclusion, where the idea of Surya Namaskaram found expression in both yogic and dance vocabularies. Here, body, mind, and cosmic order seemed to align briefly, suggesting unity not as an abstract ideal, but as a lived experience.
When Raja and Radha Reddy appeared once more, their movement carried a quiet assurance. Yamini’s own words, “Their surprising appearance was a graceful dance of tradition meeting timeless creativity”, found meaning in that instant. It was less an interlude, more a reminder: that art evolves not by departure, but by dialogue.
As the final sequence dissolved into stillness, the audience remained absorbed, as though reluctant to return to the everyday. Surya left behind not spectacle, but a feeling, one of connection, balance, and shared origin. In allowing Kuchipudi to reflect on the rhythms of the universe and our place within them, Yamini Reddy and her team at Natya Tarangini Hyderabad offered Hyderabad an evening that lingered gently, like light held in memory.
