Our education team employs a child centred and inclusive approach to Movement Arts Education, trying to make each session participatory, creative and self-contained. We also try to bring fun into learning and at the same time take care to follow sound pedagogic practices.

The education outreach programmes are offered to students from all backgrounds irrespective of their financial status, language, cast, creed, or religion. These include private schools, government schools as well as schools and organizations from the voluntary sector that work with children with special needs or backgrounds.

Dance artists of international repute who have undergone training in India and abroad in a variety of movement styles and aspects of pedagogy lead the education team at Attakkalari.

Attakkalari has set up a core group of dancers as resource team. It consists of dancers who have been training as part of the Dance Development Program (DDP) for the past two years as well as dancers on temporary contract as outsource persons to work on the Education Outreach Programme (EOP) and Dance in Education Programme (DIEP). They have been training in Contemporary Dance, Indian classical dance forms, Yoga, Kalarippayattu, Ballet, Mechanics of Movement and Body Conditioning, Contact Improvisation and Choreography.

These multiple skills and experiences have resulted in the emergence of a unique style of Indian contemporary physical expression, which is the hallmark of Movement Artists from Attakkalari. The movement style that Attakkalari has successfully developed is influenced by a number of Indian physical traditions as well as valuable information from outside India. This makes our traditional knowledge relevant and accessible for young people today. Having gained valuable experience over the years working in different parts of the world, the artists of Attakkalari would like to share that with the youth of India, specifically through these dance education processes.

We have developed a structured project with a proper syllabus, lesson plans prepared according to this syllabus and a well-defined process for conducting classes and training youngsters. The dance instructors adhere to this syllabus and all inputs are documented. A creative dance therapist was drawn upon to provide expertise on dance pedagogy.

Typically, each session can range between 40 minutes to one and half hours. Depending on the requirement of the school, a proper schedule can be worked out to mutual satisfaction. We also train students in contemporary dance for school day, annual day, founder’s day, etc and offer theme-based choreography.

This perhaps is the first time in Bangalore that an institute is offering dance education to school children in this scale and magnitude.

In the year 2003-04, we had worked with 10 schools in Bangalore, both in the formal and non-formal sector, conducting regular classes for the primary, secondary and senior students in different grades. The schools are: National Academy for Learning, Gear Innovative International School, BKS High School, Innissfree House, St. Paul’s English School, Golden Bead, Navkis Education Centre, Parikrama (2 branches) and Sindhi High School. In 2004-5 there were 9 schools under the EOP including Parikrama Humanity Foundation (2 branches), Navkis Education Trust, Sri Kumaran's Children's Home, Sindhi High School, Headstart Education Trust Golden Bead, Greenwood High School and St Joseph's High School.