After the first Work-in-Progress show, I worked with my Nautanki troupe on the suggestions given to us by the audience members and our friends at CounterPULSE, incorporating them into our second Work-in-Progress show. The changes have definitely made our piece more effective, and it now flows more smoothly. In addition, as a result of the […]
One of the major challenges I had in preparing for Mission Suhani this year was finding new actors, as many of the previous actors from last year were not available. This situation is expected when you try to involve community members as actors in a participatory effort like Mission Suhani. Most of these community members […]
I spent the last three months in Europe and India, traveling and performing Nautanki to diverse audiences. I also worked with my father on Nautanki Mission Suhani to expand the script and add new scenes for our performance at CounterPULSE this October. I first traveled to Paris, where I stayed at the Théâtre du Soleil […]
Devendra Sharma is a Performing Diaspora Resident Artist at CountePULSE. See him at weekend 3 of Performing Diaspora, November 19-22. Buy tickets now! After coming back from India in late August, I have been working hard with my group on the rehearsals of “Mission Suhani.” As soon as I landed in America, I had to […]
Hi friends! I spent last three months living in India, co-writing the new Nautanki performance script for the “Performing Diaspora” with my father– the renowned Nautanki artist, Pundit Ram Dayal Sharma, I loved my time in India. It was so much fun, and a learning experience, working with my father on this script that focuses […]
Colonialism does strange things to a culture. Ignoring one’s own indigenous “ordinary” culture, and blindly imitating others’ “legitimate” culture is one of them. It takes years and a lot of efforts before a culture realizes its self-worth during the post-colonial journey. At present, urban culture in India and Indian diaspora around the world is undergoing […]