The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) is an autonomous Trust set by the Government of India under Ministry of Culture. IGNCA is visualized as a centre encompassing the study and experience of all the arts - each from with its own integrity, yet within a dimension of mutual interdependence, interrelated with nature, social structure and cosmology.

This view of the arts, integrated with, and essential to the larger matrix of human culture, is an integral quality of person, at home with himself and society. It partakes of the holistic worldview so powerfully articulated throughout Indian tradition, and emphasized by modern Indian leaders from Mahahtma Gandhi to Rabindranath Tagore.

The arts are here understood to comprise the fields of creative and critical literature, written and oral; the visual arts, ranging from architecture, sculpture, painting and graphics to general material culture, photography and film; the performing arts of music, dance and theatre in their broadest connotation; and all else in fairs, festival and lifestyle that has an artistic dimension. The Centre focused its attention on India at the first and intial stage; it has further started expanding its horizons to other civilizations and cultures. Through diverse programmes of research, publicarion, training, creative activities and performance, the IGNCA seeks to place the arts within the contect of the natural and human enviroment. The fundamentsl approach of the Centre in all its work is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.