Many considered Yamini Krishnamurthy a celestial nymph from the Gandharva Loka who descended on earth to captivate everyone with her dance. Such was the power of her dance that anyone who witnessed it was transformed.
Yamini Krishnamurthy (83), who passed away on Saturday at Apollo Hospital Delhi after battling illness for almost three years, breathed dance, she lived dance. Her performances, marked by grace, precision and emotional depth, electrified audiences and earned her accolades, both nationally and internationally.
I was barely six years old when I first saw her dance. My mother had purchased tickets for her show at Ravindra Kalakshetra. The theatre was jam-packed and despite having tickets, we had to stand somewhere at the back. My father, a tall man, seated me on his shoulder so I could see her. I still “feel” that breathless moment when she entered the stage. It was mesmerising. She is the reason that I dance. Where Yamini was concerned, she was my guru and I, her Ekalavya-like shishya. It was a moment of reckoning when she received Padma Vibhushan the same year that I received Padma Shri and she invited me to be the chief guest at her student’s Rangapravesha.
Her mastery of Bharatanatyam was evident in her impeccable technique, her fluidity and her delineation of every movement. Yamini’s execution of intricate footwork and expressive gestures was characterised by a rare combination of precision and dynamism, setting her apart as a performer.
More importantly, she had an inexplicable presence, the power of which could only be felt. It transfixed her spectators.
Much later, as a professional dancer, I heard innumerable tales about her performances. One such tale is something I will never forget. It goes thus: “Yamini was performing ‘Swami Ra Ra’, a very well-known composition in Kuchipudi and her bewitching eye gestures hypnotised a VIP sitting in the first row, who thought she was beckoning him and walked onto the stage. The organisers had to rush to stop him…” No other dancer has had this impact on her audiences.
Yamini Krishnamurthy transformed the classical dance scene in India from the late 50s to the early 90s. A first-generation non-hereditary dancer, she initially trained in Kalakshetra and later under doyens Ellappa Pillai, Kitappa Pillai and Mylapore Gowri Ammal.
Her scholar father Krishnamurthy was her backbone and left no stone unturned to ensure that his daughter reached the pinnacle of glory.
Such was her fame that Kuchipudi teacher Vedantam Laxminarayana Shastri went to her house and insisted that a Telugu-speaking girl must learn Kuchipudi. Yamini said later in an interview that she almost immediately fell in love with Kuchipudi’s abhinaya because it suited her temperament. “Being good at it set me apart,” she said.
A glorious period for classical dance in the newly independent India nurtured Yamini Krishnamurthy and other great artistes of the time and gave them profound respect. Apart from the several awards that dotted her career, the Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams Trust honoured her with the title ‘Asthana Nartaki’.
Born in Madanapalli in 1940, the family moved to Chidambaram when Yamini was six. It was destiny that brought her to this mystical city where the God of Dance Lord Nataraja resides and she got perennially lost in the statues and Karana postures sculpted in the temple precincts. Chennai gave her the sound grounding for dance, and Delhi took her to the pinnacle of fame.
Yamini Krishnamurthy is and will always be the benchmark for classical dance. There was and is none to match her prowess as India’s dancing Diva.
(The writer is a renowned dancer, choreographer, author and arts administrator).