Choreography of a Massacre

Memory and Performance

From time immemorial, music and dance have been “partners of memory and history” (Taylor, 2011: 23). According to Richard Schechner (2011: 36–37), this involves the acting out of “restored conduct”: “Performance means: never for the first time. It means: for the second to the nth time.” In other words, performance is an effective device for memory because of its repetition, its constant practice, and its innovation. It brings memory of past events into the present. According to Taylor (2011: 13–14), performance works with two objects: archival memory and repertoire or corporal memory. Archival memory includes materials supposedly resistant to change, such as historical documents, literary texts, archeological remains, bones, videos, and records. The archive “functions through distance, both in temporal and spatial terms,” and therefore, “for its capacity to persist through time, the archive is superior to living behavior.” In contrast to the archival, which has more “outreach power,” corporal memory “circulates through performances, gestures, oral narration, movement, dance, song; in addition, it requires presence. People participate in the production and reproduction of knowledge by ‘being there’ and being part of its diffusion.” Therefore, “Corporal memory, always living, cannot be reproduced in the archive. What the archive possesses is a representation of the living act, through photos, videos, and production notes.” Finally, “these two systems of transmission (the archival and the repertoire, among others, such as, for example, virtual or digital systems) transmit knowledge in different ways, sometimes operating simultaneously, sometimes in a conflictive manner.”

The survivors of the Accomarca massacre constantly use archival records (research documents, mass graves, remains of burned housing, journalistic reports, visual records, etc.) not only to prove their case in court but also to write the script for the play about the massacre for the Carnival competition. At the same time, young people record this Carnival performance on film to preserve the memory and reconstruct the play in following years. Therefore, archival memory, survivors’ oral narrative, and performance reproduce, transmit, and deepen knowledge of the facts in a democratic, popular, and independent way across generations.

The Massacre in Lloccllapampa

According to the testimony of survivors and victims’ relatives recorded by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 2002–2003, on the morning of the massacre people were carrying out their routine domestic work very early: feeding their livestock, watering the soil for planting, or doing their household chores. A helicopter full of soldiers landed on a plain called Pitecc, adjacent to Accomarca, and under the command of Second Lieutenant Telmo Hurtado the patrol deployed two groups to besiege the town as part of Operation Plan Huancayoc. They gathered the people of the hamlet of Lloccllapampa, forced them into a shack, gunned them down, burned their bodies, and then detonated a grenade so as to leave no remains. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report (CVR, 2003: 159–160) states:

Besides giving the order to shoot, Telmo Hurtado himself threw a grenade at the places where people were detained and caused the explosion and fire. After the murder, and in order to cover up their responsibility for the crime and give the appearance that it was an attack by the Shining Path, Telmo Hurtado ordered his soldiers to pick up all the elements or substances used.

The massacre occurred at the very beginning of the Alan García Pérez government (1985–1990), which was responsible for systematic human rights violations during the counterinsurgency campaign despite García’s promise on taking office on July 28, 1985, “We will not fight barbarism with barbarism.” A month after the massacre, military personnel returned to Accomarca to eliminate witnesses before the congressional investigative committee arrived in the town to verify the facts. Hurtado, labeled “the butcher of the Andes” by the press, justified his actions before Congress, stating (CVR, 2003: 162–163):

You do not experience the acts of war as we who live here do. . . . One cannot trust a woman, an elderly person, or a child. . . . They begin to indoctrinate them at age two or three, by carrying things. . . . Little by little, by dint of deceit, punishment, they win them over to their cause.

Having confessed, he was tried in military court for abuse of authority and sentenced to only six years: then he was released and promoted and remained active until he was arrested in the United States in April 2007 for violating immigration laws while trying to obtain a U.S. visa.

In November 2010, during García’s second term (2006–2011), the court tried 29 military personnel for the massacre in Accomarca. The victims’ relatives demanded Hurtado’s extradition for the trial, and he was finally extradited on July 24, 2011. Although at first Hurtado denied responsibility, in addition to admitting that “systematic extrajudicial executions were committed in the anti-terrorist struggle by order of his superiors,” he confessed to having assassinated 31 villagers. During the trial, he also reproached another military commander, Lieutenant Juan Rivera Rondón, for killing the other victims: “I am responsible for the death of 31 people; you must have killed the rest, you burned their homes. Both of us participated in the operation” (Mazzei, 2012). Peru’s attorney general has requested that the major serve 25 years in prison for his crime.

The victims’ organization has engaged in a long battle for truth and justice from the beginning. The massacre has been remembered in different ways over time, both in Accomarca and by the great majority of the displaced survivors and members of the AHIDA. One of these forms of remembrance is the dramatization of the massacre in the Ayacucho Carnival competition organized by the organizations of Ayacucho migrants in Lima. It is the figure of Telmo Hurtado that stands out in this representation, partly because the official memory produced by the state has repeatedly pointed to his individual responsibility. The victims’ relatives have continued to condemn him because he was protected by the state with amnesties, mainly during the Alberto Fujimori autocracy, and because he very recently confessed his crimes while accusing others (Burt and Rodríguez, 2015).

The Accomarca Massacre in the Ayacucho Carnival

With the forced migration caused by political violence, artistic and cultural expressions have transcended their local and micro-regional space. Migrants carry them to their places of refuge, including the outskirts of Lima. In 1987, the Ayacucho federation organized the first Carnival competition, called Song for Life. In 1992, a competition involving all 11 provincial federations of Ayacucho called Vencedores de Ayacucho, sponsored by the departmental federation of provincial institutions, was launched in the Plaza de Acho (Huamaní, 2010: 22–23). By participating in the competition, migrants not only constructed spaces for socialization, strengthening ties of solidarity and reciprocity in a context of violence and displacement, but also reconfigured their memories and identities. While the forced migrants were far from home, the symbols, imaginaries, and artistic-cultural repertoires made their hometowns an integral part of the feelings that encouraged them to assemble (Aroni, 2013: 221).

In effect, this process provided symbolic and emotional support in overcoming pain and constructing human dignity. It also involved strategies for survival and alternative political views of the memory of the war that served to (1) counter the image of the Ayacuchan linked to violence and terrorism, (2) construct a communal space within the city as an emotional artistic-cultural refuge from the war and from social exclusion, and (3) subvert hierarchical and authoritarian social relations, for example, by resorting to a playful activity and using it to criticize power.

Chalena Vásquez and Abilio Vergara (1988) describe the Ayacucho Carnival competition as an “integral art” that

constitutes a favorable socio-artistic medium for the realization of total art: music, dance, poetry, theater. Each area is presented, developing specific languages, interrelated with one another and interdependent. Each artistic area is not self-explanatory: one explains the other and vice versa. Because of this, the concept of “total art” should be understood as “integral art,” for the simultaneous presence of artistic areas acquires a more complex and profound aesthetic meaning.

In the Ayacucho Carnival, we see the presentation of music score, choreography, and staging, all part of a complex performance for a massive audience of almost 10,000, mainly Ayacuchans and migrants from other Andean regions. Three or more musicians playing guitar, mandolin, flute, and drums perform the music for the troupe. (Electronic instruments are not allowed.) Two or three women singers accompany the musicians. According to the contest rules, musicians, singers, and dancers must be dressed in the typical dress of Accomarca. The musicians and singers collectively compose and arrange the songs.

Elsa Baldeón, 36, a motorcycle taxi driver and singer in the Accomarca troupe, was one of the massacre’s survivors. Seven years old at the time, she witnessed the murder of her grandparents and her uncle, Alejandro Baldeón, from her hiding place: “They killed him in a horrible way: they cut his hand, both arms, his knees, feet, neck. They mutilated him” (interview, March 19, 2014). Speaking of the song “Killing in Accomarca,” she said,

When we sing this song we remember our relatives who lost their lives that year (women, children, and elderly). It is painful for us. We are seeking justice to this day. We are in court, but nothing is happening . . . so we will continue fighting. We compose the songs remembering what we saw in the massacre, asking those who witnessed it what happened.

The song about the killings has a sorrowful musical score. These are the lyrics:

In analyzing the content of another song, “Little Accomarca Soldier,” the ethnomusicologist Jonathan Ritter (2013: 1–2) describes songs like this, which narrate “local experiences and attitudes towards war,” as “testimonial songs.” These songs commemorate not only the biographical experience of the singer-songwriters but also the collective experience of violence and its aftermath. For some Accomarca migrants, the songs are also a means of protest. “We express our protest through our songs; since we do not find justice, we think that we have to protest through our songs. That is what this song means,” says Florian Palacios, 59, son of one of the Accomarca massacre victims (interview, March 15, 2014).

The figures and body movements of the dance in sync with the music make up the choreography of the dance (Mendoza, 2001), which is mainly performed by young people, children of the migrants and survivors of the war. It was rare to see young people dancing in the competition in the 1990s because they were still children. During those years it was mostly their parents and institutional authorities who participated. The young people of today can perform more energetically for the 20 or 30 minutes they are on stage. Accomarca migrants saw the need to transmit to their children not only the experience of the war but also the cultural and musical practices of their village, and for 10 years they have been training the children for the Carnival competition.

According to Florian, the majority of the dancers are young people born in Lima. They participate not only as dancers but also as leaders in organizing rehearsals and in the Carnival competition. For Florian, the feeling that unites these young people is the pain that their parents feel over the loss of their loved ones in the massacre. Florian is the youngest of six children. His mother died young of illness, and his father and his stepmother were killed in the August 14, 1985, massacre. When I interviewed him, he spoke about the “choreography of a massacre” as a form of play and protest in the Carnival: “For us, the ‘choreography of the massacre’ means . . . that we are outraged that we do not find justice after so many years. That’s why we protest; we have fought for more than 29 years. And we do it with our music, singing, and choreography in the Carnival competition. Carnival is play and protest for us” (interview, March 15, 2014). He argues that through the physical and emotional movements of the dance one can rekindle a critical opinion about the human rights abuses committed, be it by the state or by the Shining Path. Memory, protest, and demands for justice stem from this.

On the afternoon of March 16, 2014, the musicians played the Carnival music from a section of the grandstand of the Plaza de Acho, and the young dancers entered. The first 7 minutes of the performance (of a total of 20 minutes) consisted of an imaginary representation of the town of Accomarca and its people, with their feasts and customs: the young people danced, forming geometric figures, and the adults and children recreated planting corn, cooking, collecting cactus fruits, caring for children, etc. Suddenly this routine was interrupted by the sound of gunshots coming from the stands. A military patrol entered the stage and gathered the people together, shooting at those who tried to escape. What followed was a drama recreating the massacre that began with Quechua dialogue between two women, interpreted by singers:

Lieutenant Telmo Hurtado’s order to his troops follows:

The soldiers beat the villagers and drive them into the shack. Meanwhile, Hurtado and his subordinate encounter a couple of elderly villagers and ask them to accompany them to the meeting. The man answers in his native language, but Hurtado, who does not understand Quechua, interprets his response as an insult:

The word terruco, used for the sympathizers of Shining Path during the period of political violence, was later applied to other sectors of the population, including human rights defenders, as a stigma, especially during the Alberto Fujimori dictatorship in the 1990s.

In the following scene Hurtado heads to Lloccllapampa, where he orders his troops to kill and burn the bodies of the victims: “Soldiers, aim your weapons! Shoot! [Bang, bang, bang!] . . . Burn the house so that there is no trace” (Figures 1 and 2).

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Figure 1.

Staging the massacre in the Plaza de Acho, Lima, March 2014. (Photo Luz Enriquez Gerónimo)

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Figure 2.

Staging the massacre in Huachipa Stadium, Lima, March 2015. (Photo Diego Vargas Acuña)

After the massacre, the lieutenant orders the withdrawal: “Attention, troops! Retreat! March!” The grieving survivors attend to the burial of the dead. The song “Saint Gregory,” an old funeral song with prayers for the souls of the deceased that catechist peasants sing to this day, accompanies this scene. Finally, in a whimpering voice Abel Gómez, 30, leader of the Accomarca troupe, calls for justice in memory of the victims of the massacre:

Our parents have died this way, our innocent countrymen. That is why we Accomarcans are still demanding justice. All of us demand justice in memory of all the dead and disappeared of Accomarca. For all of them, justice for Accomarca! Accomarca lives! Accomarca will not accept defeat!

After the competition I looked for Florian, who portrayed Hurtado in the play. He was dressed in a green uniform, boots, black ski mask, and dark glasses, and his face was painted green and black. How did he feel about playing the part of the military patrol leader who ordered the killing of his father and the other people of his village? He said,

In the troupe I play the soldier every year, because I know very well how it happened. In addition, I lead the Accomarca victims’ association, and I am heading the lawsuit against the military responsible for the massacre. I know enough about how it is going forward, which is what is happening. I, more than anything as an affected person, take on the name of Telmo Hurtado. I play that role to let the public know how the military entered my village, slaughtered the people, sexually abused the women, and burned them alive.

Finally, tearful, he vented his feelings about the impact of playing this role: “I get somewhat annoyed; it’s not that I feel liberated. I would feel liberated if justice were done to those responsible for these crimes. When justice punishes all the perpetrators, then I will feel somewhat liberated—but not even then, because our parents no longer exist” (interview, March 15, 2014). While he feels outraged and impotent, at the same time he feels satisfied with himself because he is forcefully protesting and demanding justice for what happened in his village. The performers attempt to represent what occurred in the most realistic way possible to provoke reflection in the audience.

In general, the audience, mainly Ayacuchan migrants, applauded and praised the performance. Some spectators remembered and murmured about their experiences during the war, while others took refuge in silence. Of course, there were also whistles (boos), but rather than discrediting the play they reflected the rivalry between finalist troupes. On this occasion, the troupe from Accomarca won the provincial competition and went on to represent the province in the 2014 Vencedores de Ayacucho contest.

Intergenerational Memory

In the case of a lived experience such as the massacre, the survivors experience lapses of memory and transmit their experiences to the next generation. Socially and culturally sharing a traumatic experience constructs connections with the generation that has not experienced the process firsthand. This can be called the “communication of memory,” and it feeds the imagination and creativity of the “postmemory generation” (Hirsch, 2012). The members of this generation “recognize that the memory received is different from the memory of witnesses and contemporary participants” (Hirsch, 2012: 3). Generational distance establishes a mediated connection with the past wherein a transgenerational narrative is shaped by some traumatic event and communicated through “bodily symptoms,” “objects of memory,” written text, and oral narratives. This connection is consolidated by the creative and imaginative drive that the past generates in the generations that have not experienced the event firsthand.

Many years of family and community effort in staging the massacre have created an almost generational sensibility and awareness not only of what happened in Accomarca but also of the two decades of Peru’s political violence. As the choreography instructor, Juan Avendaño, 50, pointed out, “Since they never experienced this massacre, have not suffered through it, it has been difficult to reach them but not impossible; today they begin to ask ‘Why?’ It is necessary that our youth and our children become aware of one of the tragic events that occurred there” (interview, March 16, 2014).

At the same time, there are certain fluid shared spaces that allow for transgenerational interaction. One is the domestic space, where the most intimate communications flow between parents and children. Another is the communal-institutional space—the AHIDA, where discussion and organization of social and cultural activities for Accomarca migrants takes place. Still another is the public space of the Carnival, with its play and protest. In the communal-institutional space, there is a close relationship between the domestic and the public. The site is much more complex than a collective property, because it weaves a social, affective, and historical relationship. It ensures that private memory becomes public through the multiple sociopolitical, artistic, and cultural activities it organizes. What is said in the domestic space and is difficult to speak about in the public space can be said in the confidence and solidarity of the communal space. Even when these memories are contentious, the communal space allows for negotiation to present a single narrative in the public space. For example, among the victims’ and survivors’ families public condemnation of the massacre’s legacy is routine. The migrants and the generations of youth that have not lived through the event participate in the play in solidarity but without the same intensity; they are more interested in developing other themes, such as income, education, and sociocultural practices for strengthening the family and the institution. Their agenda is not, however, opposed to that of the victims and survivors, who prioritize issues of human rights, prosecution of the perpetrators, and historical memory. The AHIDA, as the lead organization, incorporates its social bases’ demands and represents them in the public space, where the audience is not only the Accomarca community but also Ayacucho and Lima residents.

In this way, as a social node, the local brings in not only the displaced and survivors from Accomarca in the capital but also the new generations. It is here that the various generations recreate and imagine the urban representation of the social and festive life of their hometown. Similarly, there is a certain continuity in resignifying cultural and musical practices about the lived experiences of their parents in Accomarca. The young people and the children know and participate in the production of patron saint’s feasts and Carnival competitions, and there they socialize—forming social ties and even finding marriage partners, becoming self-aware about assuming, practicing, and maintaining the cultural legacy of their parents, and organizing intergenerational cultural and sporting events for those born in Accomarca and Lima.

One of these young people is Abel Gómez, leader of the Accomarca troupe for the past five years. Although he was born in Accomarca, he migrated to Lima just after graduating from high school to work as a blacksmith. When he organized the young people to participate in the Carnival competition in 2011, he said, “Many young people didn’t even know about Accomarca, but as children of Accomarca migrants they began to participate, and many of them even met each other there, in the rehearsals and competitions. The youth are more united now. That’s also an incentive, a human resource. They are now not only youth or children; they come together” (interview, March 19, 2014),

However, beyond the family and the institutional space, the Carnival space explicitly offers young people and children the possibility of receiving cultural and historical knowledge from their parents. This intergenerational interaction takes place not only through bilingual spoken language (Quechua-Spanish) but also through bodily expression such as dance and music, as a device of memory and identity that renews the collective experience of violence and its consequences in the Accomarca community. In this sense, the Carnival space is also an effective site for the transmission of trauma. In the Carnival, the traumatic experience is transported to other public spaces such as the Ayacucho Carnival in the Plaza de Acho. Other publics exist there—Andeans from various regions and people from Lima. In one way or another, the representation of the massacre in the Carnival reactivates the spectators’ memories, for many of them were also victims or survivors of armed conflict. They comment on what they are seeing in relation to what they have lived through in their villages. In this way they also share their experiences and respond to their children’s anxieties about the remembered and experienced scenes of armed conflict.

Conclusion

In postconflict Peru, the function of the memory of violence goes far beyond oral testimony, construction of memorials, and commemorations of the recent past. Violence and its scars are expressed through a diversity of cultural productions contextualized in historical and political processes often in the pursuit of truth and justice. Peasants’ memory of the massacre and its traces is reflected in grassroots social organizations and activities that include victims and migrants in everyday life and in spaces of cultural production such as the troupe competitions. By focusing on the social and cultural frameworks of the memory of victims and survivors we can go beyond the global humanitarian “never again” discourse and its memorials and museums. Musical and theatrical performance is an important resource for analyzing how social and historical remembrances of armed conflict find collective creative expression in different generations and societies in postconflict contexts such as that of Peru.

The remembrance of the recent past flows through music and dance, which involve the body itself as the raw material of corporal and social memory. While the song lyrics condense the narrative of the lived and remembered event, what brings consistency and density to that narrative is the dance and the drama, in which a tragic history is renewed and recreated. The music allows interaction that evokes memory; the dance involves a more sensitive disposition of the body, inviting intergenerational participation-solidarity-confidence to dignify the lives of the dead and the living, to remember and protest.

Finally, with the performance of this massacre in the Ayacucho Carnival competition Accomarcans evoke their memories of the past as a guide for the construction of a better future. They call into question our recent past through the atrocious experience they have lived through, exposed in a Carnival performance by survivors, victims’ relatives, and, most of all, their children. They seek to transmit those experiences through intergenerational interaction in the time and space of the Carnival. Denied recognition as witnesses, survivors, and victims of the massacre while impunity prevails for its perpetrators, they seek justice in this shared initiative.