Fairytales for Grownups: The Goddess Kali

From demure housewife to bloodthirsty goddess, gurgling infant to elephant man, meditating sage to cosmic fire-eater, Hindu mythology illuminates a mind-blowing world of radical transformations. Kali is one of the wildest shape-shifters of them all. Demon-slayer, Life-saver, Supreme-Mother, Destruction-dancer, this goddess is truly awesome.

Storyteller, Emily Hennessey, and sitar player extraordinaire, Sheema Mukherjee, take the wheel on a white-knuckled tuc-tuc ride through sun-kissed palaces, fiend-infested forests and every cacophonous, saffron-scented marketplace in-between.

When an evil power spreads its clawed hands across the world, Kali’s time has come…

EMILY HENNESSEY
Work and extensive travel in India have kindled in Emily a great love of Hindu mythology. Emily has travelled over 10,000 miles across India by train, bus, rattling rickshaw and rickety bicycle. She has lived and worked with a yak-herding family on the Tibetan plateau, studied Kathakali dance-drama in Kerala and spent several months at the Kattaikkuttu School in Tamil Nadu, learning from the children who perform stories from the Mahabharata through music, dance and song from the age of 4.

Emily came to storytelling while studying Drama & Theatre Studies at the University of Kent where she met storyteller Dr Vayu Naidu. Emily completed a storytelling apprenticeship with Vayu, and later trained with Ben Haggarty. She’s also had the privilege of training with Indian Pandvani performer, Ritu Verma. Emily has toured in India with the British Council and performed at the Delhi Storytelling Festival. Emily is a key member of the Pandvani108 ensemble.

SHEEMA MUKHERJEE absorbed North Indian classical music and the western tradition side-by-side, studying sitar and Indian classical music under the tutelage of her uncle, the late Pandit Nikhil Banerjee and then with the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Brought up between Britain and India, she has a rich background to draw on in her own compositions and collaborations. Today she is an established sitar player and composer; a regular in Transglobal Underground playing sitar and electric bass; a key member in The Imagined Village project; a formidable collaborator with internationally renowned artists from many genres.

Sheema has collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Courtney Pine, Sir John Tavenor, Martin Carthy, Bobby Mcferrin, Boris Grebenshikov, Natacha Atlas, Noel Gallagher & Cornershop, Mercan Dede, the Bulgarian Folk singer Yanka Rupkina. She has toured the world widely and key performances include The World Music Festival (Chicago), Montreux Jazz Festival and the Olympia-Halle (Munich), supporting Jimmy Page and Robert Plant throughout their European tour (1998), the Olympics Arts Festival for Sydney 2000 and also makes regular appearances at WOMAD (UK) with her own ensembles.

Running Time: 95 mins
Age Recommendation: 14+