Longing to Dance: Stories of Kuchipudi Brahmin Women

This chapter focuses on the narratives of brahmin women belonging to hereditary Kuchipudi village families who have been overtly excluded from the embodied labor of performance. Unlike the brahmin men of the Kuchipudi village, who are all associated with dance in some capacity, Kuchipudi brahmin women have no such performative roles to play. Kuchipudi brahmin women’s bodies are not suitable for the labor of Indian dance. Kuchipudi brahmin women are neither the bearers of sāmpradāyam (tradition) in the manner of their fathers, brothers, and sons, nor are they the embodiments of an idealized middle-class Indian womanhood in the manner of their dancing female counterparts. And yet, as upper-caste brahmin women, they retain a position of privilege, particularly in comparison to devadāsī (courtesan) performers who have been overtly marginalized from Kuchipudi dance in postcolonial South India. As a result, Kuchipudi brahmin women occupy an uneasy interstice as brahmin women whose caste and gender enable their position of exclusion. The chapter is centered on the story of Chavali Balatripurasundari, the daughter of Vempati Chinna Satyam.