Kàlai Kàviri aims to be technically first class AND creative in its choreography and dance drama, to be both classical AND experimental.
This needs to be understood within the rationale of Indian dance. Western dance emphasises style, but Indian dance is concerned with meaning. Its tradition has been rooted in spiritual devotion (bhakti marga) through an inner attitude in the dancer which is communicated through symbolic gestures of body, face and hand (mudra). Dance is thus a language of chemistry. It carries a message which invites dedication and action. Kàlai Kàviri is immersed in that tradition and has developed it;

Kàlai Kàviri stretches itself academically. Traditional training has been informally and individually from a guru. KK has chosen to follow an academic structure and process. Uniquely among all the southern states of India the College from which the Troupe is drawn awards degrees at all levels in dance and music up to PhD. So research into classical dance forms and Carnatic music is pursued seriously;

Kàlai Kàviri has received exceptional accolades from the State government, such as 'Best Cultural Institution for the Year 2000' and now a regular subsidy. This is rare for non-governmental academic institutions and there is no personal, political, religious or other tie between Kàlai Kàviri and the government.

Kàlai Kàviri has been the dance performer for 45 Hindu temple festivals in the last ten years as well as cathedral and church functions too numerous to mention. Kàlai Kàvirihas performed for Pope John Paul II in Rome, as well as for Hindu and Buddhist leaders;

Kàlai Kàviri is fostering a twin policy of encouraging Hindu students to enrol and also of encouraging Christians to adopt traditional dance in spite of some cultural resistance among both Christians and Moslems. In both ways, there has been success. While the College has grown rapidly in the last ten years, 53 % of its students have been Christian and 46 % have been Hindu;

in its pluralistic approach Kàlai Kàviri is functioning and being received as thoroughly and authentically Indian. This needs to be understood alongside the continuous debate in India in which some voices seek to counter the multi-cultural tradition endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi and Jewarhalal Nehru, India's iconic Prime Minister following Independence in 1947;

KK preserves a positively open policy in its admissions. In the last ten years: besides the success of its pluralistic approach across creeds (see previous section), caste percentages have been 69% 'backward' caste and 31% 'forward' caste; income percentages have been 65% nil or low income, 35% middle or high income; rural/ urban split has been 56% rural, 44% urban. All this is reinforced by 'outreach' work in schools and local communities, through awards and competitions;

although the overwhelming majority of Kàlai Kàviri students come from the home state of Tamil Nadu, a subcontinent-wide and folk consciousness is maintained: 9 other states and three other countries have been represented in its student rolls over the same 10 years. This open attitude its reflected in its repertoire, in which five Indian languages are used as well as the dance traditions of several Indian states, reinforced by the composition of new folk songs in these traditions. Indeed, more than half the dances presented in performance programmes have been folk dances;

the Kàlai Kàviri dance dramas (and folk songs) portray a variety of complex social themes of good and evil, happiness and misery, justice and exploitation, suffering and compassion, natural resources and drought, jealousy and trust..., as a glance at the programme details shows. The promotion of social consciousness (or 'conscientisation') is a core policy.