The play Wayqeycuna is part of an autobiographical trilogy: unlike the first two parts of that trilogy, which are akin to cries of rage and protestation, Wayqeycuna carries within it a desire for reconciliation…
This trilogy was conceived as a series of songs. Wayqeycuna is the final song. The word means “my brothers” in Quechua, with a repetition: “my own brothers”. This third song represents, in a way, a moment of letting go: letting go of European languages—in particular Spanish and Greek—but also of the western way of thinking about and practicing theatre. I’m returning to my origins, starting with the language they speak in my region, my mother tongue, Quechua, spoken at the border between five regions, close to Peru and its capital Quito. It’s the language of the Incas, one of the most important languages of the people of the Andes, still spoken by thousands of people. This is indeed a show of reconciliation, which I started writing during a residency in Spain in 2022. We were housed in a mansion, a small palace built by a Peruvian viceroy during the Spanish colonisation. He ended up being dismissed and removed from office: he turned out to be one of the most important art traffickers of the region. All that money, of course, had made its way back to Spain. It was important for me to start creating in that palace built thanks to the money made from those exactions, thanks to the riches of my country and my region. I thought the time had come to explore the notion of reconciliation. I was finishing a series of travels. I’d just spent two years exploring the world of art and theatre. I’d become aware of the economy of violence in which we live, a violence that irremediably leads to division. To challenge that dynamic, I’m trying to create collaborative, collective shows, which are only possible outside of this logic of violence: it’s only within that space that I can begin to reconcile with this world and start thinking about a more equitable society.
The title mentions your brothers. Is it a way for you to return to the personal?
I refer to my own brothers and sisters because the first attempt to create a collaborative world probably begins in the family sphere. But the word wayqeycuna refers above all to my cultural brothers, those who make up my indigenous community. We move beyond the idea of the traditional family to try to surpass it, even to try to push back against the colonial heritage of the very concept. What we share first and foremost is the idea of being similar and belonging to the same community, of being equal thanks to our culture, our experience, and our History. There is a “familial” thread that runs throughout the shows of this trilogy: the first show was about the father, the second about the mother, and the third is a homage to the brothers who have supported me throughout this research. When my sister passed away, she had a baby, and the whole family came together to take care of this child.
Can you tell us about the way you’ve done away with your European inspiration?
To free myself from those European and colonial references, I not had only to reconcile with the world and with others, but also to come to terms with a personal loss, that of my sister. Of course, I quickly realised that grief doesn’t end, that it doesn’t conclude like a show: there’s no curtain, no applause that allows you to move on. Grief is something you carry all your life. That’s why this show doesn’t really have an ending. I don’t want applause, so that there can be a continuity between theatre and life outside of it, between the artist and the audience.
With this show, you are once again creating a time and space with the audience before it even begins…
We organise workshops before the show to bake small breads that represent the Andean cosmogony, to which my community belongs. We will knead the dough and shape it into animals or plants, then place those on a table on stage. Those small breads are usually baked around late October and early November back home, a period when our dead return to earth, which gives us the opportunity to communicate with them. The bread-making process creates a link between the artist, the community, and the audience, who are then invited to share the bread at the end of the show. During the play, I’m alone on stage, in line with the aesthetics of the first two plays of the trilogy. The space is minimalist. I’m only accompanied by a few objects, which are essential because they carry a history, a spiritual significance. There is almost no colour, we navigate from black to white. While Soliloquio strives to make the invited community visible, Wayqeycuna represents a return to a community I hadn’t visited for decades. What I want to emphasise here is how a people can resist, in spite of everything.
Were the texts written beforehand, or are they born of the encounter with the audience and with those communities?
Generally speaking, part of the show is written in advance. The writing undergoes changes as we work with the participants. For instance, the Manifestos in Soliloquio were written with the communities. Wayqeycuna is a more scripted performance, because it is about an even more personal event: my return to my own community after twenty-seven years away. My shows don’t really have a predetermined form, they can change upon contact with others. This is simply because I have chosen not to have any formal theatrical training, which I’ve always seen as something that would be a limitation to my creativity. I want to distance myself as much as possible from the Aristotelian or, let’s say, classical conception of theatre to bring fluidity to my work. The series of texts which then unfold on stage can then find a continuity, move through the space and the bodies, like a river following its course ever farther.
You’ve spent a lot of time exploring the autobiography: would you say it is an essential axis of your work?
The tradition of biography, or even autobiography, is a practice that originated with the bourgeoisie. While in this context it involves telling one’s life story in the form of memoirs, among other formats, for me it is about seizing the autobiographical act and using it as a survival tool. Even though that genre isn’t directly political, telling my story becomes for me a political act, in the sense that I am appropriating an instrument that was never intended for my social class.
Interview conducted by Moïra Dalant (February 2024) and translated to English by Gaël Schmidt-Cléach