Tom Creed and Jurgen Simpson’s Air india [redacted] will run in Vancouver from Nov. 6 to 11.David Cooper
The bombing of Air India Flight 182 produced a tragic and indelible Irish-Canadian link. The plane, en route from Canada to Delhi, exploded into the sea off the southwest coast of Ireland in June, 1985. Devastated families travelled to Cork, where they were supported by locals. They return to mark anniversaries by visiting the memorial in Ahakista.
Thirty years later, an Irish-Canadian artistic collaboration responding to the tragedy and its fallout has its world premiere Nov. 6 in Vancouver. Air india [redacted] is directed by Dublin-based opera and theatre director Tom Creed, with music by Irish composer Jurgen Simpson – who was inspired by a Canadian book of poetry: children of air india: un/authorized exhibits and interjections by Renée Sarojini Saklikar – and projections by Limerick artist John Galvin. Owen Underhill with Vancouver's Turning Point Ensemble (which performs the work with three Canadian soloists) is music director and conductor. In her gut-wrenching poems, Saklikar repeatedly references the weird coincidence of her childhood street address in New Westminster, B.C. – where her family lived when her aunt and uncle were killed in the bombing. "They visit, up at the manse, the old home-house in its place, 820 Dublin Street," she writes in June, 1985. "Yes. They bring food. And tears."
(Air india [redacted] runs at Vancouver's Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre from Nov. 6 to 11; sfu.ca/sfuwoodwards.)
Marsha Lederman