• SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (map)
  • 149 W Hastings St
  • Vancouver, BC, V6B 1H4
  • Canada

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silence & longing
30 years since the bombing of Flight 182

 

Composer – Jürgen Simpson      Music Director – Owen Underhill
Poet – Renée Sarojini Saklikar      Director – Tom Creed      Media Artist – John Galvin

 

 Tharanga Goonetilleke, soprano – Daniel Cabena, countertenor – Alexander Dobson, baritone

 

air india [redacted] explores issues of silence and longing in the 30th year since the bombing of Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, Canada’s worst act of aviation terror.

 

On the occasion of SFU’s 50th Anniversary and Turning Point Ensemble’s 10th anniversary, Turning Point Ensemble and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs are proud to present this world premiere of music, theatre, poetry and projections. Five years in the making, air india [redacted] showcases the skilled musicianship of the Ensemble with the incredible vocal talents of international rising star and TED fellow, soprano Tharanga Goonetilleke, and award winning Canadian singers, Daniel Cabena, countertenor and Alexander Dobson, baritone.

 

Irish composer Jürgen Simpson creates evocative music based on his extensive Air India Flight 182 research and inspired by Vancouver poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar’s award winning book of poetrychildren of air india, un/authorized exhibits and interjections (Nightwood Editions, 2013).

 

Over the last thirty years, despite a massive judicial inquiry into the investigation of the bombing and one of Canada’s longest and most expensive criminal trials with the acquittal of the accused, the Flight 182 saga is under-represented in our national psyche. On June 23, 1985, the lives lost tallied at 329 men, women and children, most were Canadian.

 

Since 1985, the events of Air India Flight 182 have also reverberated in West Cork, Ireland where the plane disintegrated 100 miles off shore. In the wind swept peninsulas of the Atlantic coast, families of the dead gather each year, comforted and supported by local Irish families and citizens. They share a legacy of remembered trauma.

 

When the doors of justice close, and the pain of a generation lingers, there exists an aching need to reconsider our world and its events. This chasm is one into which artists step.

 

Audience are invited to join in this artistic experience that will give testimony to silence and longing created by Flight 182. This is a sensory experience created for those who have and will always be part of this story.