Dr. Devendra Sharma, is a Professor of Communication and Performance at California State University-Fresno. He is also a seventh-generation performer of Swang, Nautanki, and Raaslila, the traditional musical theater genres of northern India. He has given more than 1000 performances worldwide and has acted in and directed many films and television programs. His ancestors made “Rahas” musical theatre popular at Awadh’s Nawab (King) Wajid Ali Shah’s court in the mid 1800s. Dr. Sharma’s artistic mission is to use the indigenous performing arts to bring critical attention to contemporary global issues.
In 2021, Dr. Sharma received the largest commission in the traditional arts ever in the US from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to create a contemporary Nautanki opera. In 2010, he was invited by the world-famous Théâtre du Soleil in Paris to train French actors in Nautanki. His directed musical, “Hanuman Ki Ramayan” was premiered at Prithvi Theater in Mumbai, completing its 100 shows in August 2018. Dr. Sharma introduced Swang-Nautanki to America and Europe, where he created a Nautanki troupe, and has directed many productions.
Dr. Sharma has written numerous book chapters and journal articles. His forthcoming book titled, Nautanki: The Musical Theatre of North India will be published by Bloomsbury Publishing, England in 2023. His latest article comparing Ramlila and Nautanki was published in Asian Theatre Journal in 2021. Dr. Sharma has been a Visiting Professor/ Artist in Residence at institutions across the world such as University of Oxford, Columbia University, University of California-Berkeley, Film and Television Institute of India, and Banaras Hindu University, among many others.
In 2007-08, Dr. Sharma was the Chief Creative Consultant to the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in India. In this capacity, he designed a folk media communication campaign to spread awareness on HIV/AIDS. From 1999-2004, he helped Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs to create a massive folk media campaign for women’s empowerment and health in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. As part of the campaign, Dr. Sharma trained more than 150 folk troupes to stage more than 10,000 folk performances. His artistic website is www.devnautanki.com.
Swang-Nautanki (north India’s traditional opera) is dying along with its “akhārās” (community-based competitive performance groups) due to the media invasion. The goal of Dr. Sharma’s Fulbright-Nehru project is to achieve the urgently-needed documentation of Swang-Nautanki akhārās, hand-written and published scripts, performances, and the aging master-performers. His research also aims to understand how Swang-Nautanki is functioning as a communication medium for Indian villagers in the 21st century. To understand this, Dr. Sharma intends to collaborate with the local community in Mathura and the areas nearby to encourage a local troupe to create a Swang-Nautanki performance piece on a contemporary issue of their choice.