Mungara Yamini Krishnamurthy (20 December 1940 – 3 August 2024) was an Indian classical dancer, one of the most brilliant performers of Bharatanatyam in the second half of the twentieth century and the artist who first brought Kuchipudi, the dance of her native Andhra, to the national and international stage. Her speed, precision and command of the stage made her a star from her first performances in the late 1950s. She was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2016.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Mungara Yamini Krishnamurthy |
| Born | 20 December 1940, Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh |
| Died | 3 August 2024, New Delhi (aged 83) |
| Dance forms | Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi |
| Occupation | Classical dancer, teacher |
| Founded | Yamini School of Dance, New Delhi (1990) |
| Awards | Padma Shri (1968), Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1977), Padma Bhushan (2001), Padma Vibhushan (2016) |
Early Life
She was born at Madanapalle in the Chittoor district on a night of the full moon; her grandfather named her Yamini Purnatilaka. She grew up at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, in the shadow of the great temple of the dancing Shiva, whose carved gateways show the poses of the classical dance. She said that those sculptures were her first teachers.
Her father, M. Krishnamurthy, a Sanskrit scholar, recognised her gift and gave up his own career to manage hers. He chose her teachers, wrote the texts and commentary for her performances, and accompanied her throughout her life.
Training
At five she was enrolled at Kalakshetra, the academy founded by Rukmini Devi Arundale in Madras. She then went for advanced training to the traditional masters of Bharatanatyam: Kanchipuram Ellappa Pillai and Thanjavur Kittappa Pillai, among others.
She learnt Kuchipudi from the leading teachers of that form, Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastri and others of the hereditary families of the village of Kuchipudi, and later Odissi from Pankaj Charan Das and Kelucharan Mohapatra. She also studied Carnatic vocal music and the veena.
Career
She gave her first full performance in Madras in 1957, at seventeen. Within a few years she was the most sought-after dancer in the country, and in 1960 she moved to Delhi.
Bharatanatyam
Her dancing was marked by extraordinary vitality: fast, exact footwork, leaps and turns, sculptural poses held to perfection, and large, eloquent eyes. Critics spoke of electricity. Some of the older school found her too dazzling; audiences adored her.
Kuchipudi
Kuchipudi had been a dance-drama performed by men of a few Brahmin families in one village of Andhra. It was just beginning to be presented as a solo form. Yamini Krishnamurthy included it in her programmes from the start of her career, in Delhi and on her foreign tours, at a time when hardly anyone outside Andhra had seen it. Its present standing as one of the classical dances of India owes much to her.
Abroad
She toured widely from the 1960s, in Europe, the United States, the Soviet Union, South-East Asia and elsewhere, often as part of official cultural delegations.
Honours
- Padma Shri (1968), at twenty-seven
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1977)
- Padma Bhushan (2001) and Padma Vibhushan (2016)
- The title of resident dancer of the temple of Tirumala
Teacher
In 1990 she founded a school of dance at Hauz Khas in New Delhi, where she taught until her last years. In the 1980s she presented a television series on the dances of India. Her autobiography, A Passion for Dance, was published in 1995.
Personal Life
She never married, saying that she was wedded to dance. Her sisters assisted in her work.
Death
She died in a New Delhi hospital on 3 August 2024, aged eighty-three, after a long illness.
Legacy
She belongs to the generation that carried the revived classical dances from the recital halls of Madras to audiences across India and the world, with Sonal Mansingh and Birju Maharaj among her contemporaries.
Featured image: Yamini Krishnamurthy in March 2014. Photo by Anjali Reddy J, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
