 "Photo: Alex Trautwig")
The Center for Human Rights and International Justice hosted the Peruvian theater troupe Groupo Cultural Yuyachkani in Gasson Hall this Thursday for a special performance of a piece titled Kay Punku, which used theatrical elements to tell the story of sexual violence incurred against the Manta women of Peru, and the process of healing they undertook in the aftermath thereof.
The history of the Manta women is a sadly familiar tale in its historical parallels of using women's bodies as "a battlefield," as one line from the show stated. The continued presence of armed insurgents from the Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path in areas of Peru since the 1980s has brought the Peruvian counterinsurgency army into these emergency zones. Once occupying these rural areas, soldiers force the women to feed them and house them, before systematically raping them. Women are brought by the soldiers under the pretense of taking their statements and have sometimes been gang raped by 20 to 30 soldiers.
Although much of the conflict has subsided since 1992, these women have not received justice for these crimes, and all attempts to locate the perpetrators have been met with contempt and often public humiliation. Many of the women became pregnant during the conflict, and their children are known only by the pseudonyms of their fathers. The Peruvian military officers have waved away the instances of rape as a "regrettable excess" of warfare. These women have no outlet politically or socially to speak about what has happened to them or to fight for legal reparations.
That is where Yuyachkani comes in. The group, as one of its actors Ana Correa explained, is a multi-disciplined repertory theater group that is widely known for its use of performance for social action. It produces large theatrical productions as well as commenterio theater. In commenterio theater, the troupe works with specific communities to use theater as a tool for expressing themselves through dance, song, ritual, and the spoken word.
Kay Punku, roughly meaning "This Door" in the Quechua dialect, came out of this sort of community work with the Manta men and women. Kay Punku was performed by two sisters from this 10-person troupe, Ana and Debora Correa. They have been doing a tour of Kay Punku to several American colleges including Harvard, Rutgers, and Trinity College. Boston College was fortunate enough to host these Yuyachkani, thanks largely to the efforts of Brinton Lykes professor in the Lynch School of Education, who had known the sisters in Guatemala and acted as interpreter during the talk back that followed the performance.
The show itself pulled on a number of theatrical elements that called upon all the senses of the audience. The sisters danced, sang, played several musical instruments, sprinkled scented water, and shared oranges with the audience as part of the ritual of healing that is the central action of Kay Punku. Kay Punku was created through a process of sharing and exploring with the Manta women to find the best way to describe what happened and how to move on from it. The Correas described in the talk back the three main moments of the play; the denunciation, the rage, and finally the physical and spiritual cleansing. They used elements of storytelling, as Ana read from a large book titled Military Base and Pseydonyms that were tragic, yet the action was reminiscent of reading stories to children. Much of Kay Punku explored this dual nature of objects that can be used both for terror and for healing. The sisters used the ringing of bells as a call of alarm, and again at the end as an instrument in the healing ritual.
The bare set contained one simple wooden door that was moved about the stage and was the focal point for much of the show. Ana explained the significance of the door and the title.
"Door is the English word, but it is so much more than a door. It is a portal, a very special space that leads to other dimensions," she said.
Following the performance, the sisters showed a documentary on one of their street performance from 2004 protesting the silence that surrounded these crimes against humanity. A group of women, all dressed identically in white were taken by actors dressed as soldiers and symbolically raped in front of a Peruvian statue, mimicked by an actor dressed entirely in gold. The performance was very short, but incredibly graphic and powerful. Ana and Debora described how performances in a public space must be both graphic and symbolic to affect the passersby without being overly disturbing. The group continues to call for the cases to be tried against the army officers.
"We think that now we have thousands of cases to go to trial," Ana explained. "We are in that struggle to achieve justice."
Another important part of Yuyachkani's work is teaching. They have a partnership with New York University where students go to Peru to learn how to use music, symbolic action, and dance in theater. Yuyachkani is a Quechua word that means "I am remembering," and it is through their important work, and others like them, that this remembering and retelling of stories, often left in the dark, come back into the spotlight.
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