Voz de tierra que llama: o cuando el repertorio re-territorializa

Abstract

This essay focuses on Voz de tierra que llama (1995) by Eduardo Valentin Muñoz, a director and playwright from the central highlands of Peru. This play constitutes a part of the theatrical archive on the problem of the displaced (embodied in the text by a woman). The subject(s) emerged within a socio-political Peruvian context that emerged during the “time of fear” (the last two decades of the 20th century). In terms of an archive, Voz de tierra que llama narrates the tragedy of eight deterritorialized Andean women who try unsuccessfully to re-territorialize themselves in the city. The play also deals with the return of the displaced to their rural origin. We posit that the reterritorialization portrayed in the play of Valentin Muñoz relates to the reformulation of the use and meaning of the elements of an Andean oral repertoire, a repertoire that the modern systems of representation reject as not responding to the written canon and to literacy. In this sense, we claim that Valentin Muñoz’s play proposes to politicize the use of the Andean “archive” on the trauma brought on by the original deterritorialization. The politicization of the arckhe makes it a place of constant tension, resistance, and negotiation.