Gaurav Saini is a theatre and film director. He trains actors, works with children, and creates performances.

He is currently a Resident Artist at NIRMAN – a non-profit organization based in Varanasi, and is a faculty member of the Vedica Scholars Programme for Women in New Delhi. He also conducts workshops for communities and institutions.

His feature film, Shankar’s Fairies (producer and associate director, 2021) premiered at Locarno International Film Festival and has been selected and awarded at numerous film festivals around the world.

In 2019, he was a Fulbright scholar-in-residence at Ohio Northern University where he taught Indian aesthetics and performance and directed the Theatre Department’s International Play Festival. He has been a Mellon Fellow at the Claremont Colleges in 2016, as part of an initiative to enrich undergraduate academic courses.

Gaurav uses many different physical forms of training from traditional Indian performance forms and Western theatre, including in Michael Chekhov techniques, Corporeal Mime, Suzuki, and Clowning. He is a Black Belt in Thang-Ta, an ancient martial art of Manipur in India, and has also trained in Kalarippayattu, Tai-Chi, Judo, and Aikido.