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Devi demonstrated throughout the program exactly how she regards Kuchipudi as a living, growing dance language that she is personally extending and making accessible - by having a narrator explain the basic moves and dramatic theme before each dance by introducing English dialogue in some instances and by transforming some stylized dramatic passages into a more naturalistic mime style. Like many other historical genres, Devi insisted, Kuchipudi isn't a frozen tradition but is continually evolving. She also said she had no wish to be viewed as an "exotic" or "ethnic" dancer, but rather wanted her performances to be enjoyed for the same communicative qualities that mark other art forms.
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Her enlightening remarks also touched upon the rhythmic complexities of Kuchipudi its use of "micromovements" - minute skeletal and muscular articulations that give most Eastern dances their ornate appearance - and the special gestural language of hand signs (mudras) common to Indian dance styles.
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My Prayer," alluding to an important circumstance she cited in an introductory talk - the fact that all classical Indian dance forms began in association with temples and temple rites. In 1987, however, she settled in suburban Maryland, where she also has founded the first Kuchipudi academy in the Western world. Devi mastered the art under the tutelage of gurus in her native India she has since performed and taught the style in such far-flung environs as India, Java, Kenya and the United States, including, for instance, at the University of Wisconsin. Like other such styles, it was originally an exclusively male province, but in recent times women have been admitted to its mysteries. Kuchipudi, though not nearly as familiar to American audiences as such other Indian genres as Bharata Natyam, Kathakali or Kathak dance, is an ancient heritage of central India. Merriam-Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, originally published in 1983, for instance, contains "groovy" and "gringo," but not "griot." Similarly, it defines "krummhorn" and "kreplach," but not "Kuchipudi." Yet this last term - Kuchipudi - names one of the major branches of the classical dance of India, and an extremely eloquent exponent of the form, Nilimma Devi, presented a beguiling program of Kuchipudi Thursday night in the Studio Theater of the University of Maryland, where she is a visiting artist this semester. Some of the plainest evidence of the lag between cultural change and our collective awareness of it is to be found in the dictionary.