Having already composed music for nearly 160 dance ballets, D.S.V. Sastry is one of the most sought after composer and singer for Kuchipudi dance productions in Hyderabad. His grandfather DandiBhotla Venkata Sastry was a well known writer for the traditional Kuchipudi Yakshagana (dance dramas). Sastry spoke about the importance of music for Kuchipudi dance at the ‘Nartanam Conclave’ 2018. Says Sastry, “It is very important that music brings out the emotion of each and every character in a Kuchipudi dance ballet. Imagine if there is a soft song happening in a scene depicting a warrior or a demon. It will definitely be a mismatch between the audio and visual.”
Sastry spent his childhood in the Kuchipudi village learning music from P.V.G. Krishna Sarma. “Renowned playback singer Ghantasala was our distant relative. I was very fond of ‘Ghantasala songs’. I would see Kuchipudi Yakshagana performances continuously happening on many occasions in the village. I somehow got attracted to the dance form and started learning it. I was enjoying every moment of my time but had to spend more time on learning and performing vocal music. In those days there was a shortage of good singers for accompanying the dance productions and I was given more opportunities of singing. Therefore, my journey as a singer got more priority than as a dancer. Later, I decided to learn Carnatic music and came to Hyderabad and joined Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University to complete my bachelors in music. I was spotted by Vedantam Ramalinga Sastry in the year 1996 and given the first opportunity to compose music for ‘Nartanasala’ production. Since then there was no looking back,” shares Sastry.
Sastry understands the changes that have been coming in the field of Kuchipudi dance since his childhood days. “In those days, Kuchipudi dance was the forte of male dancers only. All female roles used to be donned by male performers. The dance drama had dialogues and songs being performed by the artistes themselves. So there was no role for a separate accompanying singer as such. As times changed, the Kuchipudi dance form got introduced into the female domain and started having more solo performers.”
Sastry feels that it is very important to take forward the intricacies of specialised music for Kuchipudi dance by establishing a school for it. “I feel that even the existing educational institutions and universities should work on establishing a course to train students exclusively in music related to Kuchipudi dance. The Telugu language, the pronunciation and nativity needs to be preserved in this manner,” concludes Sastry.
