Since the founding of this city, its culture-craving populace has routinely flown north to soak in the ample arts of the Capital. When in 2008, the well-endowed auditorium at Epicentre offered itself up to the arts, the weekly exodus to Delhi was stemmed somewhat. But when curtains fell on this stage in 2017, people resumed their long flight once again. They may now have reason to stow their wings.In the last year, several new stages have sprung up in Gurugram, rallying quietly to make of this barren land a thriving cultural habitat. These prosceniums are no lofty cultural centres (like those long-promised by the state government), but are the commonplace units of urban life — its schools, cafes, and offices.Off pulsing Golf Course Road, for example, when night falls, a school auditorium transforms monthly into a concert hall. Empty of its daytime amateur productions, Excelsior American School in Sushant Lok 1 then plays host to professional musicians, dancers, dastangos and actors — the upshot of a collaboration called Avirbhav between the school and a city-based classical music school called Kal-Aakaar Collective.Since September 21, when they staged a concert by The Krintan Collective , led by violinist Sharat Chandra Srivastava, Avirbhav has held six performances, with a line-up including Susmit Sen, Fouzia Dastango and Firoz Khan, the Niazi Nizami Brothers, Kathakars Parveen Parihar and Siddhi Goel, and the theatre group The Trialogue Company, which only this Saturday performed the musical, Tansen. Their forthcoming acts feature vocalist Ujjwal Nagar, The Gangani Project, Pandies Theatre, and fusion band Mrigya. "We were looking for a platform to draw children and adults back to the magic of live performances," says Prachi Dutta, founder of Kal-Aakaar Collective. "They leave lasting impressions and build a bedrock of creativity and an appreciation for the arts."While Gurugram is fairly flooded with standup comedy and live Bollywood music, it has been an arid desert for the classical arts, with not even the mirage of a family-friendly entertainment venue. It was Dutta’s search for such a venue that led her to Col. Sanjay Kumar, secretary of Shakuntala Devi Educational Society that runs Excelsior American School."Children in Gurugram have little exposure to the performing arts because the city lacks a varied and regular cultural programme," points out Col. Kumar. "When children watch a live performance, ones among them studying that form will learn even more from established performers; and if they’re new to the form, they may be motivated to pick it up."Another emerging venue — Monkey Business — is located inside a mall (South Point). A co-working space with onsite childcare, its 3,000 square feet transfigure neatly into a stage for performances on weekends. "Everything is on wheels, including the tables, partitions, and play area, so when we need to clear space for a performance, we simply roll it all away," says Vandana Maithani, one of its three founders. "If you look at the way our space is designed, events and performances are meant to be an integral part of it. The meeting room, which looks like a wooden hut, is also on wheels and can turn around to become a stage," she says.Danish Hussain has performed dastangoi here; Yellowcat Theatre performed a play called Stepping Stones; and The Two-Headed Lore, a devised theatre piece conceptualised by 15-year-old Mauraya Sharma, was also staged here. The play won its director, Manjari Kaul, the 2018 BroadwayWorld India Awards for best sound design. Like Excelsior, Monkey Business also wants to cultivate an age-agnostic cultural space. Moreover, when it does feature acts like improv or stand-up (all kosher), the play area allows for safe sequestering.Most of these ventures, however, have meagre funds to market beyond social media and word of mouth, which could result in a turnout of 10 or 100. Loveena Singh, founder of The Beehive, a cultural hub in Sector 43, believes unlike Delhi, which has an older, evolved tradition of cultural appreciation, the audience in Gurugram is still nascent. The Beehive organises workshops in the main for children and adults, and hosts bimonthly improv or theatre shows. They are also setting up a theatre club, for people to participate in monthly meetups to discuss stagecraft and eventually stage a play. The unique feature of small spaces is that they allow for more intimate and experimental performances, says Singh. "People associate plays with big auditoria, so a neighbourhood performance space like this is a pleasant surprise to them."Then, there’s Kunzum Travel Café in Sector 47, which has a sprawling lawn that doubles as a stage."While our Delhi branch has 500 sq ft, the Gurugram one has 8,000," says Ajay Jain, the founder, who imagines this could well be the city’s scale version of India Habitat Centre. To show they endorse the idea, a vast audience turned up for the two qawwali performances held on their lawns in January (Kunzum has its own acoustics). "Opening up the space to all kinds of events — small-format plays, concerts, film screenings, book launches, standup — creates a healthy cultural ecosystem. We can do much more in Gurugram because of the larger space," Jain explains.Just across the border, in the precincts of Delhi’s IGI airport lies another venue — Upstage — the theatre and auditorium of Roseate House in Aerocity. A plush, 71-recliner space that opened in 2017, it has hosted 50 shows to date, including dance recitals, plays, standup comedy, operas, book readings, film premieres, film festivals and book launches.Susmit Sen says for a cultural climate to thrive, it needs the backing of all — the audience, media and corporates (who can extend their CSR budgets). It may be difficult to draw in a crowd for upcoming artistes, especially at venues that have fluid identities, which is why Sen believes venues have to push out an active roster of events regularly to develop the permanent cultural identity they seek. "Perhaps smaller shows to begin with. So many upcoming acts want a space to perform," he says.

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