Performance storytelling by: Emily Hennessey. Music by: Sheema Mukherjee.

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Born a princess. Raised a prince. Reborn a warrior.

Making a pact with the God Of Destruction is always going to have consequences. But in a world of cosmic matchmakers, divine curses and secrets set to explode, every arrow must eventually reach its target.

One of the most radical figures of the Indian epic, the Mahabharata, Shikandi's boundary-shattering story follows the journey of a soul who battled across lifetimes to settle old scores, dancing the karmic tightrope while playing with fire.

With music by maverick sitar player Sheema Mukherjee, this is a pulse-pounding, hair-raising, heart-lifting mythological roller coaster, soaring between the worlds of gods and mortals to break the rules and defy destiny.

CONTENT WARNING: this performance contains references to violence, war, self-immolation, suicide, and infanticide contextualised within a paradigm of mythic narrative, archetype, and metaphor.

EMILY HENNESSEY

Emily Hennessey is a playful and dynamic performance storyteller often found wielding a stick and stamping her feet as she embraces epics, myths, wonder tales, and folktales from across the world. With a great love of Hindu mythology, she has traveled over 10,000 miles across India and Nepal by train, bus, rattling rickshaw, and bicycle. She has lived with a yak-herding family on the Tibetan plateau, studied Kathakali dance-drama in Kerala, and worked at the Kattaikkuttu School in Tamil Nadu, learning from the children who perform stories from the Mahabharata through music, dance, and song. With a Swedish background, Emily also has a passion for the Norse myths and Scandinavian folklore, including a particular fascination with that curious hairy creature, the troll.

Emily came to storytelling while studying drama and theatre at the University Of Kent, where she met and completed a storytelling apprenticeship with Dr. Vayu Naidu. She later trained with Ben Haggarty and with Indian Pandvani performer Ritu Verma.

Emily has recently performed at the Soho Theatre; Rich Mix, London; the British Museum; with the Crick Crack Club at the Earthouse, Cranborne Village, Dorset, and York Theatre Royal; the Royal Opera House; Shakespeare's Globe; the Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, Denmark; Nordic House, Reykjavík, Iceland; and the Kathakar Storytelling Festival, Delhi. She has toured India with the British Council and many European clubs and festivals. Emily is a key member of the Pandvani108 ensemble.

emilyhennessey.co.uk

SHEEMA MUKHERJEE

Sheema Mukherjee learnt North Indian classical music and the Western tradition side by side, studying under the tutelage of her uncle, the late Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, and then with the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Today she is an established sitar player and composer; a regular in the trance troupe Transglobal Underground; a key member in folk radicals The Imagined Village; and a formidable collaborator with internationally renowned artists from many genres.

★★★★☆
The Observer

★★★★☆
Financial Times

mukherjee.co.uk

CRICK CRACK CLUB

'Mesmerising. The Crick Crack Club weaves a web of enchantment.'
Time Out London

Founded in 1987 by world-class performance storyteller and sector pioneer Ben Haggarty, today Crick Crack Club is the UK's busiest and boldest performance storytelling programmer and promoter. It creates exuberant, intelligent, wild, weird, and wonderful events in London, Bristol, Dorset, and across the UK that draw people from all walks of life into a shared experience and the stunning content of international fairy tales, folktales, myths, and epics. Featuring outstanding performance storytellers and the very best new talent, its annual public programme of shows and residencies can be found in theatres, at festivals, in castles, caves, village halls, rose gardens, and derelict warehouses.

crickcrackclub.com

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'A treasure house of humour, romance and myth.'
City Limits

★★★★☆
'Unmissable... magical performances in unique venues... chilling, mystifying, adventurous and romantic.'
Everything Theatre

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Every month, Crick Crack Club brings its wild haven of fairytale, myth and epic to the awesome red velvet surroundings of Bristol's finest independent cinema, theatre and place of happenings, The CUBE Microplex: THE place in Bristol for unusual events, performance art, spoken word and live storytelling for grown-ups.