that bangalore has a vibrant and growing cultural scene has never been disputed but is the cultural infrastructure of the city keeping pace most young musicians dancers and theatrepersons in the city feel that to truly encourage the arts bangalore needs more spaces and a larger variety of wellequipped venues preetam koilpillai director black coffee productions feels there are quite a few spaces only if one uses the word spaces in its broadest sense the degree to which each one is technically equipped to handle specific art forms varies tremendously from spaces that are wellsuited to performance to those that are better suited to wedding receptions the primary limitation is technical most spaces are not acoustically treated and have light sound and set limitations sometimes there arent even adequate changingrooms or backstage space and facilities he says the onus of creating such spaces lies on the government as well as civil society feels koilpillai i think the responsibility should be a collective one the best spaces that are available now have been built by passionate individuals who are seriously interested in the arts if the government can contribute more significantly to these efforts wed have far more and betterequipped spaces than we do now he says though bangalore boasts of a number of wellequipped auditoriums like chowdaiah memorial hall mlr convention centre ranga shankara and jagriti theatre most are situated at some distance from the heart of the city if someone from south bangalore wants to catch a show at chowdaiah he would have to leave home at least two hours before the show while there are a few venues in the cbd area including alliance francaise and ngma auditorium they are not suitable for bigger or more complex theatrical productions independent theatre actor and dancer sindhu murthy who recently performed a solo show based on the life of mexican artist frida kahlo at jagriti agrees that there are some lacunae most of the spaces are located away from the heart of the city making it nearly impossible for people to beat afterwork traffic to watch performances its hard enough to get people living next door to watch a theatre performance or a classical dance music recital theatre activist ashiqa salvan who is involved with the citybased group rafiki also feels that bangalore needs more space for cultural activities the demand for spaces far exceeds the supply it is especially difficult to get the right dates in these few spaces says salvan