Ramakrishna was born in Bali, Indonesia to an ethnic Indian migrant family of Telugu descent from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh whose parents are named, Damayanti Devi who hailed from Nalgonda, and Ramamohan Rao, from East Godavari.
During his childhood he came in touch with gurus like Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, Vedantam Laxminarayana Sastry, Naidupeta Rajamma, Pendyala Satyabhama and Jampa Muthyam under whom he learnt various forms of art.
[2] His dance performance before the royal assembly consisting of scholars, poets, art critics and the elite of Nagpur city was his turning point.
On request of the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy he established Nritya Niketan - a dance school at Hyderabad.
Over his long career he trained many dancers and wrote and choreographed highly acclaimed dance dramas.
He helped to propagate Chindu Yakshaganam (Telugu: చిందు-యక్షగానం), an ancient folk form of Telangana and revived other folk arts like Tappetagullu (Telugu: తప్పెటగుళ్లు) of Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts, Veera Natyam and Garagalu of East and West Godavari districts, Devadasi dance and dance tradition of temples performing Adhyatma Ramayana.