Annual report 2003-2004 - India Foundation for the Arts

cannot be contained within a restricted timeframe and that partnerships between artists areoften most productive when they are notfocused exclusively on tangible outcomes.Should IFA be extending assistance, for example,for efforts to set up a durable frame orplatform for interactive arts practice? Shouldwe be supporting work that leads up to collaborativeactivity but is not necessarily its startingpoint? These are among the concerns that areprompting IFA to rethink the future of thisprogramme.Arts Education14While IFA is convinced that the artist’screative processes hold immense value for thefield of education, we have found it difficult toidentify educational institutions capable ofdeveloping imaginative arts education projects.This is largely because the educational sectorviews the arts in exceptionally conventionalterms and envisions a very circumscribed rolefor the arts in education. Last year, therefore,we began to shift our focus from trying tonegotiate grants with schools and colleges tothinking of ways of supporting artists and otherprofessionals to work from the margins of theeducational system. As a strategy, using the artsto enliven the extracurricular space might beeven more productive if it is informed by alonger-term vision to bring the arts into thecurriculum.IFA made three arts education grants in2003-04 that reflect this new thinking. The firstof these grants is enabling the AttakkalariCentre for Movement Arts (ACMA) to developand implement an ‘Integrated MovementEducation’ programme in eight schools andtwo informal educational establishments inBangalore. With our support, ACMA is introducingstudents from diverse economic and socialbackgrounds to contemporary movement arts,training dancers to teach, and offering shortworkshops, apart from developing a danceeducation syllabus and curriculum for schools.ACMA’s initiative is significant because it signalsa performing art organisation’s altogether rarecommitment to developing and sustaining artspedagogy.This is a challenging assignment, not leastbecause ACMA has to attend to the task ofproducing trained dance teachers alongsideoffering a dance education programme inschools. To address this challenge, ACMAoffers a certificate course in ‘Movement Artsand Dance Education’, whose graduates thenserve as dance teachers in its ‘EducationOutreach Programme’. The dance teachers areencouraged to make their sessions with childrenvery interactive, and indeed to collaborate withthem in exploring creative approaches indance. They have also learnt to break down