New Year, new beginnings

For Kuchipudi danseuse Yashoda Thakore, March 27 was just another day until she got the phone call. “The caller told me that I was going to receive the Ugadi Puraskar by the AP government,” says Yashoda. But the impact of the recognition sunk in only when she actually received it on March 29. “It felt surreal,” she says.

For someone who has been dancing for the last 35 years, this recognition took a while to come, but Yashoda is glad it finally came her way. “According to my father, I was three years old when I proclaimed to him that I wanted to become a dancer. However, I actually started learning dance much later when I turned six-and-a-half years,” says the danseuse, who started training at Dr Vempati Chinna Satyam’s Academy.

AP’s Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu presents Yashoda with the Ugadi Puraskar

After learning dance for 14 years at the academy, Yashoda decided to venture out – that’s when life actually began. “For so many years, I was living a protected life. So when I moved out of the academy, it was tough. I had to write letters and send my resume to several people looking for chances. But it was also then that I realised I had done only one solo performance in the 14 years I was there,” she says.

That wasn’t the only challenge. “When I was in 10th standard, I had developed sever spondylitis and for a dancer, that actually spells doom, but that led me to yoga, which gave me a different hold on myself. After that, I had a baby and I developed asthma which made dancing difficult, but I eventually got a hold of it,” she says.

In her over three-decade-old career, apart from learning Vilasini Natyam, Yashoda has also been instrumental in bringing back the Devadasi dance form to the city.