Transformative Art Education in Madurai schools

Transformative Art Education in Madurai schools (36461):

14.12.2019 and 17.12.2019  Language for communication- Writing workshop for the University and College Students   No. of participants : 50 students   “Writing goals? – discover the pleasure of writing freely… Say that “I am a writer” and write freely!

“I felt free…. The atmosphere made me relax and write without inhibition”  said a M Phil student from The American College

The Goal of the workshop was to discover the writer in oneself and liberate them..  The daylong workshop started at 10:00 AM and ended at 4:30   The students loved to work with Terry Nichols the resource person for the workshop

24.12.2019  Transformative Arts  - Learning about modern dance with Randee Paufve and Bharathanatyam with Ms.Nivetha Mohan   - 11 students  Goals of the workshop – Explore physical theatre, modern dance techniques and Bharathanatyam structure

    The students from various colleges had a daylong workout with Ms.Randee Paufve, Ms.Nivetha Mohan and Ms.Rohini.  I never knew that I had these muscles, and they could be fluidly and gracefully moved.   My body felt different– one of the participants said.      Some of the student participants are physical theatre artists and a few others are part of Shakespeare club.   At the end of the day they broke into groups and produced short skits.

Winter camp :  26.12.2019 to 31.12.2019  Theme on Fire and properties of fire – 9 participants  

Goals of the workshop:  Understand science through art – perform history of anything through art

The curriculum was very effective, consisting of painting, learning the scientific facts about fire, performing a skit they came up with.   The skit traced the “history of fire” its discovery, modern fire gadgets, and responsible ways of handling fire etc.

Prof.Krishnakumar gave a great presentation to the children about the chemical and physical properties of fire.  On the final day they all performed the skit they wrote.   It was choreographed by Ms.Rohini and Nivetha Mohan.

10.01.2020 - Transformative and creative use of language – Tamil language instruction – symposium for University and College professors     12 professors and language teachers

This was a very unique day of bringing all the Tamil scholars, teachers and study abroad instructors together, to discuss about Tamil teaching and learning.   It was a well rounded discussion on teaching an inclusive language that is inclusive to encourage freedom of expression, sensitivity and build relationship.

11.01.2020   leather Puppetry and story telling  - Learning to create puppetry with Muthu Lakshma Rao – replacing paper with goat leather      15 students

Meet Lakshmana Rao – The tholpavai koothu kalaignar. Tholpavai is shadow- leather puppetry, in which the artist performs with the leather puppets and narrates a story.The tholpavai, or the leather puppets are made of goat skin.  To the children he taught with thick chart paper and bamboo sticks.  These worked fine  The children learnt the stories of deforestation and advocacy for tree planting, and water conservation.

12.01.2020 :  Communication workshop for NGO professionals – Creative methods to work with the community -  Finished with a performance of Muthulakshmana Rao –  Themes on  Water conservation, forest preservation   12 participants

NGOs language and Communicating needs:  The daylong workshop had very unique participants who work to transform the society.  We covered a range of topics from identity, being a unique community, building knowledge economy, running awareness programs, exploring partnerships etc.   The participants were from NGOs working with distressed women, underprivileged children,  transgender community, and street children. 

25.01.2020 Dance workshop for SSSV College students – Learning communicative dance movements – Transforming performance.  Learning with Randee Paufe  (23 students)

The acronym SSSV stands for Sri Satguru Sangeetha Vidyalayam.   This is a college that imparts performing arts education, mainly south Indian classical art forms.  The daylong workshop taught the students newer realms of physical movements, expressions and performing technique.   They explored the possibilities of using the classical art form to communicate social themes. 

2.02.2020   Working with CEWAS Children – 22 children

CEWAS is an organization located in Kadavur, working with rural women and children.   AJ Trust went there with the student volunteers to teach dance, theatre and basic material of STEM.    We were there over three weekends. 

The first STEM and Arts program at CEWAS, Kadavur

Children from Vemparali, Parali Pudur and Velichacha Natham attended the workshop.
This is the curriculum we had already tested and succeeded in semi-urban Madurai.
The theme was "Kaadu" (forest). The children explored all elements that make up a thriving forest.
Our dance instructor and Honorary Associate Director(performing arts) Ms.Nivetha Mohan led a team of three teachers: Ms.Sorna Lakshmi, Ms.Alagu Deepa and Ms.Gayathri.

The daylong program is available as a video here's the link:

09.02.2020 working with CEWAS Children 30 children

What is my language? Dr.Vidya and Shabnam working with children studying up to fourth grade.

They were around 7-10 years.-- confident, quick, witty and keen in listening. This group had some sweet confusions about language—especially in terms of knowing what words are Tamil and what words have been borrowed from other languages.

When Dr.Vidya asked them to tell her the Tamil word for "Dance" they unanimously said dance and dancer were Tamil words!

They were convinced that "foot" and "food" are the same and you eat these--it is all "Saappadu". This stems from the fact that Tamil does not have a distinct ‘t’ and ‘d’.

Everything from hip to toe is "kaal" in Tamil -"lek" in English.

On the other hand, these children could sing the latest and upbeat film song without missing a word! One little guy came up to Dr. Vidya in the end and said "Nandri" (thank you) for teaching him the English word for his kannukkutti (calf).

Being bilingual at school level has its merits!

16.02.2020  working with CEWAS Children  36 children

Emperor's New Clothes.

The children loved the story. Everyone in the group was engaged. They felt compelled to come up with the moral of the story.

One kid said, “Kings should not be so foolish"

Another said "one should not waste time in making clothes."

The girl who volunteered to be Little Red Riding Hood in the previous week, refused to play the King's role, saying “it is a foolish character. I don't want to be that"

Ms.Nivetha demonstrated the scope and range that the ‘foolish’ character threw open.