General rehearsal
CRA’P Presentations 2026
Saturday 24 Octobrer at 18:30
CRA’P Space
Breathing the Mahabharata is a work in progress, a ritual-based work that unfolds over 12 years. From 12 December 2016 to 12 December 2027, the public will be invited to interact with different formats of oral storytelling based on the Mahabharata, the great epic narrative of India. The process can be followed in writing on the blog: respirarelmahabharata.com.
Throughout this twelve-year period, the public can experience how the telling of a traditional story gradually adapts to the rhythms of the present. Not from a predetermined initial vision, but as a process of inner and collective exploration that continues to surprise as it evolves.
The proposal for this eleventh year is based on the accounts that have come down to us concerning the incubation processes of Phocaean culture, originating in the Mediterranean, but with more than plausible Indian roots.
The public is invited to fall asleep in the space while listening to an oracular reading of the Mahabharata’s narrative, accompanied by percussion, sounds and gentle singing. In the dreams each person may have, we will encounter echoes of the ancestors who have been telling the Mahabharata up to the present day.
Text preparation and reading: Michael Gadish
Percussion, sounds and ceremonial singing: Gisele Cornejo
Guide: Toni Cots
Reverse box office. Limited audience, early booking:
info@cra-p.org / 666763504
Michael Gadish is an oral storyteller, cultural researcher, and creator of stage projects that explore the transformative power of myths. For the past two decades, he has been working at the crossroads of philosophy, the spoken word, and live art.
His central project is Breathing the Mahabharata, a twelve-year journey (2016–2028) in which every December he offers a new telling of the great Indian epic, accompanied by reflections, publications, and collective experiences. This long-term commitment turns the story into a shared river, one that grows with time and allows audiences to recognize themselves in essential questions: war and peace, love and justice, fragility and hope.
He has collaborated with contemporary theatre and dance projects and leads workshops and lectures that combine symbolic storytelling, critical thought, and an exploration of lived experience. His work proposes an encounter between the ancestral and the contemporary, the sacred and the everyday, inviting us to rediscover the spoken word as a common space where we can imagine new ways of being in the world together.