Video documentation of Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani's theater piece Adiós Ayacucho (Farewell Ayacucho), adapted by Miguel Rubio Zapata from the eponymous tale by Peruvian writer Julio Ortega and performed by Augusto Casafranca with music by Ana Correa. Adiós Ayacucho tells the story of Alfonso Cánepa, a farmworker leader from the Southern Peruvian Andes, disappeared and killed during the 1980's, who returns from the netherworld and begins a journey to Lima, the capital city, looking for his bones so that he could rest in peace. Cánepa befriends a "Qolla" (a comic Andean dancer), who lends him his body and his voice so that he could tell his story. The play is performed around a platform that supports pieces of clothing, according to the Andean custom that lays them in wake, eight days after the death of a relative, as a final farewell ritual. During the years of political terror of Peru's Dirty War this ritual has been transformed as the only way to bid farewell to the souls of the departed when their bodies have been disappeared by the military.

Script

 Adios Ayacucho (eng) (73.9 kB)

 Adios Ayacucho (esp) (101.43 kB)