[1] The school was founded in 2013 by a group of Mandalay-area artists with financial and logistical support from the Arts Mandalay Foundation and Los Angeles photographer David Heath.

The curriculum also includes a strong program in English language, Myanmar literature, and math, in part through a cross-training agreement with the Phaung Daw Oo Monastic School nearby in Mandalay.

The dance curriculum follows a modified form of the strict regimen developed by the famous instructor Oba Thaung in the 1950s at the Mandalay State High School for the Arts (Pantya).

The school also trains the Mahāgīta, a corpus of Myanmar traditional songs that was cultivated by the royal courts over a period of many centuries, going back to the Pyu and Mon dynasties.

Students are also taught a threatened vocal repertoire known as naugh’ pain which accompanies thousand-year-old morality plays and female dirge singing, which is central to traditional funerals of high-ranking monks.