Attakkalari Public Charitable Trust of Contemporary Performing Arts

As part of its grant conditionalities, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) places an obligation on the Attakkalari to hold an annual colloquium on various aspects of the arts. IFA held discussions with Attakkalari, and proposed that the colloquium in 2006 be centred on arts education. We offered Attakkalari partial support for the colloquium, and full participation in its conceptualisation and design. Titled “Accessing Arts Education: Possibilities and Challenges,” the colloquium will be held on November 25, 2006. IFA and Attakkalari were agreed that there was a generally conducive atmosphere in educational circles for the advancement of arts education agendas. With this in mind, it was decided to invite speakers from a spectrum of persuasions within the field of arts education: policy-makers, grant-makers, theorists, artists and arts-in-education practitioners, in order to acquaint practitioners with policy-level thinking and, conversely, to expose policy-makers to ongoing initiatives on the ground.

The colloquium will explore recent curricular thinking on the part of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), and understand how it envisions the place of the arts in education. It is also designed as a forum at which practicing artists and active arts educators can share their experiences and articulate their hopes for arts education. Our hope is that policy level thinking will be enriched by being exposed to existing arts education initiatives, particularly those of IFA’s grantees.

The invited speakers for the colloquium include Dr U.R. Ananthamurthy (inaugural speaker); Professor Krishna Kumar, Director, NCERT (keynote speak); Shubha Mudgal, Chairperson, Focus Group on Arts, Music, Theatre and Dance, NCERT; Sadanand Menon, arts writer and scholar; Jayachandran Palazhy, Artistic Director, Attakkalari; G. Venu, Founder-Director, Natanakairali; Dr Shekhar Seshadri, psychiatrist and teacher, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS); Dr Rashneh Pardiwala, Director, Centre for Environmental Research and Education (CERE); and Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Programme Officer, SRTT. The day-long colloquium will be moderated by writer and translator, Dr Arshia Sattar.