Mahbharata April 26, 2007

Mahabharata is a brand new piece of dance theatre featuring an international ensemble of 26 dancers, singers and musicians. They create the story of the Mahabharata as seen through the eyes of Draupadi; a woman who defies her destiny to become wife to five brothers and who, lost in a game of dice, becomes the catalyst for the world's most terrible war.

Directed by Stuart Wood and written by Olivier Award-winning lyricist Stephen Clark, the mythic world of bloody conflict and beauty has been re-visited with a contemporary sensibility. Mahabharata features a specially composed music score by multi-award winning Nitin Sawhney, who returns to Sadler’s Wells after creating the score for the phenomenally successful Akram Khan collaboration, Zero Degrees.

photo: Eric Richmond Gauri Sharma Tripathi, one of the country's leading kathak exponents and choreographer for Akram Khan, has created a new dance language for the piece, using a kathak vocabulary seen through a contemporary dance perspective.

Mahabharata is a total theatrical experience bringing together design by Angela Davies, puppetry and object animation by the country's leading puppetry director Sue Buckmaster as well as cutting edge video animation and projection by Lorna Heavey.

Costume design by Angela Davies and Janet Bird and lighting by Chahine Yavroyan.

Official Website: http://www.sadlerswells.com/whats_on/2006_2007/mahabharata.asp