Revealed By Fire, One Woman's Narrative of Transformation

Abstract

On the morning of June 23, 1985, Flight 182, en route from Toronto to Bombay, India disappeared from all radar screens and subsequently was lost to a mid-air explosion over the Atlantic Ocean, 100 miles from the southwest coast of Ireland. It was the largest aviation disaster in Canada’s history. Of the 329 passengers aboard the flight, 156 were Canadian, three of whom were Canadian choreographer Lata Pada’s husband and two daughters. This essay is an account of Pada’s artistic process in the creation of Revealed By Fire, a bharatanatyam performance choreographed by Pada for her dance company Sampradaya Dance Creations. Set in a theatrical interface between Pada’s present and the dream-like life of her past prior to the crash, Revealed evokes the darkness and destruction that followed on the heels of this event, as well as her tumultuous journey of self-discovery in the process of the dance’s making.