Learning with us
You will be bad at it for a while
That is not a warning. It is the method. Kuchipudi is learned by repeating a small number of things far past the point where they feel interesting, until one day the body does them without being asked. If you can accept that, you can learn this form. Most people who stop, stop because nobody told them.
Before you begin
What learning it actually involves
Most dance pages tell you how joyful it will be. That part is true and it takes care of itself. These are the things people wish they had been told at the start.
Araimandi, the half sit. Most of the first year happens here.
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The first months are feet and posture
Not expression, not story, not performance. You will spend a long time in a half sitting position learning to strike the floor cleanly and in time. It is unglamorous and it is the whole foundation. Everything expressive that comes later is built on a body that can hold this position without thinking about it.
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Repetition is not a phase you pass through
Senior dancers practise the same basic sequences that beginners do. The difference is not that they have moved on to harder material. It is that the same material has become precise. If you are looking for constant novelty, this form will frustrate you.
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Adults can start
There is a persistent belief that Indian classical dance must be started in childhood or not at all. Children who start early do gain something that is hard to acquire later. That is not the same as saying an adult cannot learn. Adults learn differently, ask better questions, and often progress in understanding faster than they progress in the body.
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It is physical, but it is not a fitness class
You will get stronger, particularly in the legs and the back, and most students find their stamina changes. But the aim of a class is not to work you hard. Coming for exercise alone tends to end quickly, because the pace of the actual training is too patient to satisfy that.
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Nobody performs for a long time
There is no schedule of recitals to work towards, and no pressure to appear on a stage. Performance in this tradition comes when a teacher judges that a student is ready, which may be years. Many students never perform and are not lesser students for it.
How classes run
Two ways to learn
In person in Montreal, and online for everywhere else. They are the same syllabus taught by the same teacher. They are not the same experience, and it is worth knowing the difference before you choose.
In person
Montreal
A teacher can correct a position by touch, see your weight from the side, and hear your feet properly. Rhythm is easier to hold in a room with other people in it. If you are in or near Montreal, this is the better option and it is not close.
Days, times and location to be confirmed.
Online
Everywhere else
Live classes, not recordings. You need a space roughly two metres square, a hard floor rather than carpet, and a camera placed so your whole body is visible from the side. Corrections are slower because the teacher is working from one angle, so online students are asked to film themselves between classes.
Time zones and schedule to be confirmed.
The path
Roughly what the first year looks like
The order below is traditional and more or less fixed. How long each stage takes is not. It depends on how often you practise, and every honest teacher will tell you the same thing: the students who move through this quickly are the ones who do ten minutes most days rather than two hours once a week.
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01
Standing, sitting, and the salutation
How to hold the half sit, where the weight goes, how to place the feet. You also learn the namaskaram, the salutation to the floor and the teacher that opens and closes every class. It looks like a formality. It is also the first thing you will be corrected on for years.
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02
Adavus, the basic units
The alphabet of the form. Each adavu is a small fixed combination of foot, leg, arm and hand, practised in groups and to a spoken rhythm. Everything you will ever dance is assembled from these. This stage occupies most of the early months and it does not really end.
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03
Hand gestures and the first reading
The hasta vocabulary, learned as shapes first and meanings second. At this point dance stops being only movement and starts being language, and most students find this the moment the form opens up for them.
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04
Your first pure dance item
A short composed piece with no story in it, built entirely from adavus set to a melody. This is the first time the separate pieces you have been drilling become a thing that can be danced from beginning to end.
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05
Your first item with a story
Where Kuchipudi starts to become itself. You stop being a body executing shapes and become somebody, telling something, to someone. For most students this is a year or more away, and it is worth the wait.
Stage three, seen
Three of the hastas. There are many more, and each one carries several meanings depending on where it is placed and what the song is doing. This is the vocabulary that turns movement into language.
Practical
What you need to begin
- No previous dance Nothing is assumed. Students arrive from every background and from none.
- No Telugu Classes are taught in English. The rhythm syllables and the texts are taught as you meet them, and you are not expected to arrive knowing any of it.
- Bare feet, loose clothing Anything you can sit, bend and stretch in. No costume and no ankle bells to start; those come later, when there is something to wear them for.
- A hard floor For online students especially. Carpet swallows the sound of the feet, and the sound is half of what the teacher is listening to.
- Practice between classes Short and often beats long and rare. Ten or fifteen minutes on most days is genuinely enough at the start.
- Patience with yourself The hardest requirement, and the one that decides who is still dancing in a year.
Fees
How this is organised, and what it costs
- Class length
- To be confirmed
- How often
- To be confirmed
- Billed by
- To be confirmed
- Class size
- To be confirmed
Fees are not the same for everyone, and we would rather say that plainly than publish one number that turns out not to apply to you. They differ between the in person classes in Montreal and the online classes, and they differ by where in the world you are paying from. Ask, and you will get a straight answer the same day.
If cost is the thing standing between you and starting, say so in the message. It is a conversation worth having and it has been had before.
Beginning
There is no form to fill in
Send a message. Say roughly where you are in the world, whether you are asking for yourself or for a child, and anything you already know about the form. That is enough to start with. You will be answered by the person who would be teaching you, not by an office.
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