Shobitha BU

This Foundation Project, implemented by IFA, engages sixth and seventh grade students of the PM Shri KPS Government Higher Primary School in Hiregadde village in Thirthahalli taluk, Shivamogga district. The project titled Bannada Hejje (Colourful Steps) is a confluence of colours and movements to create an engaging and memorable learning experience for students. Visual arts will be combined with dance-based storytelling connecting to curriculum in languages, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. 

Shobitha BU is a visual artist and Bharatanatyam dancer from Thirthahalli. She has been practising this dance form since the age of eight. For the past five years, she has been running a dance school called Smruthi Kala Sharadhi in Bejjavalli village. Her aim is to provide rural children with opportunities to learn, experience, and engage with the arts. Painting and handicrafts are her other areas of interest. She is trained in Hase paintings, wall paintings, and traditional writing practices. She has also created stage props and designs for several theatre productions. In addition, she has experience of visiting several government schools in and around her village once a week to provide free dance classes to students. Given her experience and sustained engagement with children and the arts, she is well placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.  

Arts have the potential to spark curiosity, imagination, and eagerness among students. Their inherent flexibility and openness to multiple forms and disciplines create opportunities for experiential and exploratory learning. When art is meaningfully connected to students’ everyday classroom learning, the teaching-learning process can become continuous, and engaging, rather than being driven primarily by the pressure to complete the curriculum or prepare for examinations. In this way, Arts Education creates a shared platform for students, teachers, parents, and the wider school community to approach learning as a thoughtful, nuanced, and on-going process of inquiry, exploration, and reflection. 

Learning through inquiry is further enriched when two or more art forms come together to inform and complement one another. The juxtaposition of different artistic forms can open up new ways of understanding concepts, allowing students to explore, interpret, and express their learning through multiple perspectives and sensory experiences. In this context, this project, titled Bannada Hejje (Colourful Steps), looks to engage sixth and seventh-grade students of PM Shri KPS Government Higher Primary School in Hiregadde village through a series of activity-based learning sessions integrating visual arts and dance-based storytelling. The project aims to explore how these artistic practices can be woven into the existing curriculum to make classroom concepts more accessible and memorable for students.  

During the first phase of the project, the Kannada alphabet and its classifications will be taught to students through cartoon illustrations in a simple and interesting way. Following this, the science curriculum on the structure, types, and growth of plants will be explored through a combination of line drawings and colours, enabling students to understand the concepts more easily. Students will be encouraged to create visual expressions using leaves and colours. Following this, the study of maps and the solar system from the science and social science curriculum will be explored through the grid method used in drawing and painting. This method can make it much easier for students to understand proportion and spatial relationships; and to draw maps and the solar system more accurately.

Learning Poetry through Music and Dance will be the next concept explored. Poems from the textbooks will be made more engaging for students by composing suitable melodies and choreographing dances according to the themes, emotions, and rhythms of the poems. Further, these poems will be illustrated as storyboards through drawings, allowing students to understand and interpret the poems visually. Alongside this, musical compositions from Dasa Sahitya and Vachana Sahitya will be explored through a visit to the birthplace of Purandara Dasa, a historical site located in the neighbouring village of Araga. This experience will help students connect literature and music with history, place, and the cultural heritage of their region.

In the second phase of the project, students will begin working on two lessons from their textbook—Panjara Shaale and Sangolli Rayanna—through theatre and dance-based storytelling. Local resource persons will be invited to enrich the project by engaging students in preparing props, sets, costumes, and music. This special dance and visual presentation will help students understand and remember the life story of Sangolli Rayanna and the central theme of Panjara Shaale in a more vivid and lasting manner. In the next class, to help students understand the importance of food and introduce them to different types of grains, grain-based rangoli designs will be used. Handicraft artists from the village will be invited to guide the students in creating food-related images using grains. Both students and teachers will participate in this activity, making it a collaborative learning experience.

A trek to the historic Kavaledurga Fort will be the next destination for experiential learning as part of the project. During the visit, students will observe the plants, trees, sculptures, architectural elements, fort structures, and temples, remains of the old palace, ponds, and other features of the site. They will be encouraged to observe and identify the unique and rare colours, shapes, textures, and forms found in their surroundings.  Students will also collect naturally fallen stones and pieces of tree bark with interesting shapes and textures. After returning to school, they will learn to create artworks on these natural materials using colours. This activity will encourage students to observe their surroundings carefully and understand how nature and heritage sites can become sources of artistic inspiration. Following this, the project will explore cartoons, object-based illustrations, and line drawings to learn mathematical concepts such as formulas, lines, angles, shapes, measurements, and other related concepts in a simple and accessible manner. By transforming abstract mathematical ideas into visual forms and familiar objects, students will be encouraged to understand mathematics through observation and creativity.

The last element of the project will be the learning of Yakshagana, a traditional performance art form that is popular in the Malnad region and is closely connected with the cultural life of its people. Students will learn and perform the Krishna and Sudhama lesson from their Kannada textbook by adopting Yakshagana steps, movements, expressions, and music. Through this experience, students will not only understand the lesson better but will also gain an opportunity to engage directly with a traditional art form from their own cultural region. Through these series of interdisciplinary experiences, the project aims to create a learning environment where students are encouraged not only to acquire knowledge but also to observe, question, interpret, create, and express. The integration of art with everyday classroom learning thus becomes a means of making education more experiential, meaningful, and joyful.

The outcome of the project will be a performance and an exhibition of the paintings and artworks in the school premise. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will include photographs and video documentation of the entire project.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Education programme in the manner in which it attempts to connect students and schools to the cultural knowledge of the regions they inhabit and communities they live in. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.