Monika Monalisa By Express News Service BENGALURU: With the city witnessing a growing arts and culture scene, the opening of Damru on Kanakapura Road is a thumbs up to the artistic community who often rue the lack of performance venues in Bengaluru. Situated in the lush green premises of Shankaraa Foundation, this new auditorium has a seating capacity of 300, and is a performance stage ideal for plays or dance performances. Naturally, the auditorium was inaugurated with a dance and theatre festival which will continue till October 13. About the unusual name, founder of Shankaraa Foundation and a seasoned Bharatnatyam dancer, Rashme Hegde Gopi says she has a spiritual connection with the sound ‘damru’. “For me the sound is like poetry which has the whole world’s energy in it. So when we were finalising a name, I thought what better than to name the place which is about sound and drama,” says Hegde who had always dreamt of a closed theatre space to provide performers a better experience. “I always wanted to have a proscenium, and you have to be a performer to understand the feeling of watching the curtains fall, the lights fade and the applause from the audience. I wanted that for the artistes here,” says the 63-year-old perfectionist, while giving crisp instructions to her team about a technical flaw in sound in the auditorium. The idea first struck her in 1998 when Shankaraa Foundation was formed. However, owing to financial crunches, the project never saw light of day until recently. “The moment we had enough funds to construct a place like, this we didn’t waste a day. We started construction in March 2018 and it took us around a year-and-a-half to complete it. We were waiting for an auspicious day to inaugurate,” says Hegde, for whom this space is a tribute to her late father T Shankar Hegde.

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