In July 2004 The Kathak Ensemble & Friends/CARAVAN, Inc. was awarded a Manhattan Community Arts Fund grant "to create a participatory workshop incorporating dance movement and rap-like rhythmic compositions (kavita torah) from the traditional Indian Kathak dance repertoire."

This project was carried out with students from the Banana Kelly Community-Based Public High School, 965 Longwood Avenue in the South Bronx. Ninth grade teacher Ms. Claudia Sell and her assistant brough their class to the Thursday, November 18th performance of POWER PLAY. The Kathak Ensemble's Artistic Director, Janaki Patrik, and the composer of music for the evening's premier dance, Dinuk Wijeratne, spoke with the students before the performance, giving them some ideas about what they would see and hear. The students were extremely attentive and appreciative. It was evident that they were proud of their behavior and of their ability to appreciate art forms which were very different from their prior experience.

On Thursday, February 3, a four-person team from the Kathak Ensemble visited the Banana Kelly High School and conducted a workshop with members of the school's "step team". Stepping, inspired by multiple sources such as hip-hop, rap and South African boot dance, has now joined cheer leading and break-dancing as a very popoular form of group movement and vocalization. The workshop began with tabla drummer Narendra Budhakar, composer-pianist Dinuk Wijeratne, dancer Sita Mani and choreographer-company director Janaki Patrik watching the step team perform several routines. When Narendra played some of the stepping rhythms and translated them verbally into tabla drum language, the steppers immediately answered with excited foot stamps, and body slaps. Janaki gave an example of Kathak footwork which builds in rhythmic complexity in exactly the same pattern as stepping builds improvisationally. The steppers immediately copied this rhythm.

The workshop concluded with the steppers asking The Kathak Ensemble to return. Janaki has already begun the process of finding funding to continue this exploration and co-choreograph several dances with the steppers, with the intent to create a performance for the school and possibly an outdoor city festival.

In June 2004 The Kathak Ensemble & Friends/CARAVAN, Inc. was awarded a grant for the "Earth School Residency Project". The Earth School is a small community-based school-within-a-school located three blocks from The Kathak Ensemble's office on the Lower East Side, a neighborhood inhabited by a diverse ethnic population including Ukrainian, Bangladeshi, Eastern and Western European, Korean and Hispanic populations among others. Supported by the Earth School principal, Michelle Herring, the Kathak Ensemble's Artistic Director, Janaki Patrik, met with the director of the OASIS after-school program which services three Lower East Side Schools and arranged to teach as part of the OASIS program. The residency commenced with a performance by four ensemble members, and it has continued with weekly classes in Indian classical, folk and "Bollywood" cinema dance. The residency will conclude with a short performance by the participating students.