Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani : Antígona.

Video documentation of the theater piece Antígona, directed by Miguel Rubio Zapata and masterfully performed by Teresa Ralli of the Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani (Peru) in the context of the first Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, held at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2000. This one-woman performance of José Watanabes version of Sophocles classic tragedy is a breathtakingly sad example of the devastation twenty years of civil violence in Peru caused; although it is the story of only one character, it speaks for the nearly 70,000 disappeared men, women and children of Peru. Perus most important theater collective, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani has been working since 1971 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. Their work has been among the most important in Latin Americas so called New Popular Theatre, with a strong commitment to grass-roots community issues, mobilization, and advocacy. Yuyachkani won Perus National Human Rights Award in 2000. Known for its creative embrace of both indigenous performance forms as well as cosmopolitan theatrical forms, Yuyachkani offers insight into Peruvian and Latin American theater, and to broader issues of postcolonial social aesthetics. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics