Interview with Ana and Débora Correa of the Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani, conducted by Katherine Nigh as a part of the 6th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, celebrated in June of 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina under the title CORPOLÍTICAS en las Américas: Formaciones de Raza, Clase y Género / Body Politics in the Americas: Formations of Race, Class and Gender

Biography

Since 1971, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani has been working at the forefront of theatrical experimentation, political performance, and collective creation. "Yuyachkani" is a Quechua word that means "I am thinking, I am remembering." Under this name, the theater group has devoted itself to the collective exploration of embodied social memory, particularly in relation to questions of ethnicity, violence, and memory in Peru. Founded through the initiative of Miguel Rubio, Teresa Ralli and others, the group is recognized throughout the world as one of the most premier exponents of Latin American theater. For the past 38 years, they have created performances intimately aligned with Peruvian society, involving the spectator in an act that is at once reflective and emotional. Yuyachkani creates a theater for all that reveals Peru's great diversity, drawing on rituals, the sacred, and Andean space to provoke an introspective investigation into the past that can help us understand the present.