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CREATING OUR OWN
Folklore, Performance, and Identity in Cuzco, Peru
By ZOILA S. MENDOZA DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2008 Duke University Press
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8223-4130-7
Chapter One
THE MISIÓN PERUANA DE ARTE INCAICO AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARTISTIC-FOLKLORIC PRODUCTION IN CUZCO
A key moment at which to begin our exploration of folkloric art in Cuzco is when the production of the music and dances that would shape a regional identity, as well as regional proposals for a national identity, previously closely connected with the development of the "Incaic theater," took on independent and active lives of their own and began to displace drama. Without completely abandoning the theater, many artists became creators and the driving force behind the cultural institutions and events that would promote artistic-folkloric creation throughout the twentieth century. At first, many of the cuadros costumbristas (traditional tableaux), musical pieces and dances that began to be depicted as representative of the Peruvian and cuzqueño identity, had been a part of these dramas or were directly derived from them and thus still had the Inca or Incaic as their central symbol. But, although it never completely vanished, the Inca theme gradually ceased to dominate the artistic scene while a more prominent role was awarded to themes that were recognized as representative of the contemporary world and/or cultural miscegenation.
It must be noted that in order to materialize the Inca aesthetic, from the beginning the renowned musicians of Cuzco and other provinces had used some elements derived from the contemporary rural repertoire (Romero 1988, 223-24). However, it was around the 1920s that the artists, themes, instruments, and styles belonging to the contemporary rural and popular urban worlds began to appear more openly and in force. Finally, it was also at this time that the artistic output took on a leading role in the efforts to develop the genuine cuzqueño and national identity.
The best way to illustrate this moment is to review some aspects of what was called the Misión Peruana de Arte Incaico (Peruvian Mission of Incaic Art), a performing troupe headed by the renowned indigenista Luis Valcárcel. Between October 1923 and January 1924, this artistic group, which was hailed as a Peruvian cultural embassy in both the national and foreign press, successfully took a repertoire of cuzqueño art to Buenos Aires, La Paz, and Montevideo, where audiences assumed that it was representative of Incaness, Peruvianness, and Americanness. The misión's experience, which was formed mostly by cuzqueño artists, is worth recalling for at least three interrelated reasons. First, it remains engraved in the memory of cuzqueño artists as a glorious moment when cuzqueño traditions, and Andean traditions in general, received well-deserved recognition both in Peru and abroad. Second, in the misión, as I try to show here, there were already mechanisms at work that would foster a convergence of the styles, traditions, individuals, and themes that would become more fully developed once Cuzco's cultural institutions took shape. Finally, everything seems to indicate that the successful experience of the misión stimulated not only the establishment of the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo, which was the first institution of this kind (and the most important and respected one in Cuzco nowadays), but also the establishment of all the institutions that followed it.
We must not forget that the misión was formed in the midst of the social and political changes brought about by President Augusto B. Leguía during his eleven-year administration in 1919-30 (what is now known as the Oncenio). These changes were intrinsically connected to the expansion of the state and capitalism in Peru, as well as with Leguía's dream of building a Patria Nueva (New Fatherland) that would modernize Peru through the transformation of its ancient political and economic structures. Leguía tried to gain the support of the proletariat, the peasantry, and the middle class in order to consolidate his position vis-à-vis the old landed oligarchies. This led him to develop a populist rhetoric that echoed indigenista ideas. For instance, his administration supported the establishment of the Comité Pro-Indígena Tawantinsuyo (Tawantinsuyu Pro-Indian Committee), which was a pivotal actor in the political arena of the time and was formed by pro-Indian ideologues based in Lima, radical indigenistas from the provinces, and Indian leaders who identified themselves as such and came from different political backgrounds (De la Cadena 2000, 89). Leguía likewise gave legal recognition to the communal property, agricultural land, and pastures of "Indian communities" and established the celebration of the Day of the Indian on June 24. During his second term of oce he likewise actively promoted the music and dance festival held on this date at the Pampa de Amancaes in Lima, which until then had only taken place as part of the feast day of Saint John.
This study of the Peruvian and cuzqueño experience of the misión will show that, although this group was led by intellectuals and artists with formal musical or artistic educations and some cosmopolitan influences (a knowledge of the classical and contemporary repertoires of Europe and the United States), it also included artists who came from a more popular, rural, and self-educated cuzqueño tradition. I will emphasize that the artistic output of the formally educated artists was strongly based on popular Andean urban and rural traditions that were considered indigenous from the standpoint of the city. I will likewise stress that in the misión's performances we have an early example of the convergence of individuals, themes, genres, and forms and in general a fusion of aesthetic elements from various traditions derived from both a formal and a cosmopolitan artistic upbringing and Cuzco's self-educated rural and popular-urban tradition of the time. However, in order to understand the nature of the misión and the work done by the artists that led it, a brief reference must be made to the previous development of the drama and music that had been called Incaic and were synonymous with a nationalist and Americanist art in Cuzco and the rest of Peru, as well as in other South American countries.
INCAIC THEATER
César Itier, the author of the major study of Quechua theater in Cuzco (1995, 2000), emphasizes the fact that the Incaic drama fostered and developed above all in Cuzco was a "comprehensive proposal of a national culture" that "meant to renew the development of the pre-Columbian drama, linguistic, musical and choreographic tradition interrupted for four centuries" (2000, 11). Itier identifies four major stages in the development of this tradition, during the third of which (1917-21) this art form was acknowledged "by a vast public as the national theater par excellence, not just in Cuzco but in other provinces, as well as in Lima" (2000, 87). In this period, too, the work of Cuzco's theatrical companies crossed national borders and turned the Incaic theater into a pan-Andean phenomenon (Itier 1995, 11). It is worth noting that at least by 1913 the interest in this type of drama was not limited to the upper and middle classes of the city of Cuzco but was very popular among members of the general population who were monolingual Quechua speakers.
According to Itier, Incaic dramas were "set in Inca times, [and their] arguments came either from contemporary regional legends or from the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chronicles. [They] often portray loves gone awry due to historical circumstances. The characters are always Incas, that is, members of the elite. In general, Incaic dramas sought to show the virtues that made Tahuantinsuyo great and the vices that brought about its ruin; the authors thus hoped to morally instruct their public" (1995, 26-27).
The play that marked the peak of this tradition was known as Ollantay, but its original title was Los Rigores de un padre y generosidad de un rey (The Harshness of a Father and the Generosity of a King). The possible origin of this play generated a long and interesting debate. Some even argued that it was a legacy of the Inca period (though not written at the time, of course, as the Incas had no form of writing). This play, which was possibly written in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century by the Catholic priest Antonio Valdés, has been the subject of several translations (not just into Spanish but into other languages as well), versions, and reinterpretations by many literati and playwrights, both Peruvian and foreign. Ollantay eventually became the most popular play performed by the members of Cuzco's cultural institutions.
This play tells the story of the forbidden love between Kusi Ccoyllor, a princess of the Inca nobility and the daughter of Inca Pachacutec, and Ollanta, a general in the Inca army who was not of noble status. The secret union of Kusi Ccoyllor and Ollanta, forbidden by Pachacutec, produces a child named Ima Sumaq, which results in a ten-year jail sentence for Kusi Ccoyllor. Later Ollanta takes up arms against Pachacutec, but the old Inca dies before a direct encounter takes place, and his son, Tupac Yupanqui, succeeds him. The new Inca, unaware of the history of the liaison between his sister and Ollanta, faces the latter in person and not only forgives his rebellion but also acknowledges his military feats on behalf of the empire and appoints him "second Inca" (Calvo 1998, 307), the official in charge whenever the Inca leaves Cuzco. When this happens, Ima Sumaq, who has recently discovered her imprisoned mother and is unaware of the identity of her father, leads Tupac Yupanqui and Ollanta to her prison. The quandary is resolved, and Tupac Yupanqui sanctions the union between Ollanta and Kusi Ccoyllor.
The music and dances in these plays were part of their great appeal. The classical musical theme in the first performances of Ollantay, which were staged in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, was composed by Manuel Monet, one of the pioneers of Cuzco's music in a regionalist and nationalist vein. In the late nineteenth century Monet, along with other cuzqueño musicians, was collecting indigenous melodies in order to incorporate them into his compositions, which were likewise based on musical styles from the pre-Hispanic tradition such as the harawi. In the following section we shall see that other provincial musicians who composed this type of music also followed this strategy, albeit with variations in degree and the ways in which the materials derived from the contemporary rural and popular-urban repertoires were used.
It must be noted that the choreographers of the theatrical companies also used contemporary rural traditions to a greater or lesser extent. This was acknowledged in a newspaper comment published in 1919 about the performance in Cuzco of the play Yawarwaqaq, written by the famed cuzqueño author José Félix Silva, which claimed that all of the dances were "modern stylized creations of the indigenous tradition, as should be the case in all reconstructions of this kind of the past, which must not be a servile copy of it but an aesthetic depuration" (Itier 1995, 33).
The fact that a journalist acknowledged that the music and dances presented as Incaic were to a great extent based on the contemporary peasant repertoire should come as no surprise, as the prevailing idea among the most renowned artists and students of the time was that "the peasant music of the time was an extension of Inca music" (Romero 1988, 224).
INCAIC MUSIC
As with theater, the development of so-called Incaic music in Peru must be understood within the context of a nationalist effort of an indigenista kind that swept all of Latin America in the early decades of the twentieth century (Béhague 1996, 311-24). Although at first most of the productions of the composers who spearheaded the creation of this music were associated with theater, it had already developed a parallel life of its own. By 1917 it was acknowledged throughout Peru as a genre in itself (Itier 2000, 9).
The extent to which the individuals who were the driving force behind this music based their creations on contemporary rural and popular-urban musical forms varied from one case to the next, as did the extent of their formal musical education. Nonetheless, their work had much in common. These nationalist productions, in which provincial composers such as the renowned Huánuco-born Daniel Alomía Robles were preeminent, had a major influence on the members of what was already known in the early twentieth century as the Cuzco School.
One of the few eorts thus far to systematize what is known of Peruvian music considers that the work of most of the pioneering members of this school (Mariano Ojeda, Pío Wenceslao Olivera, Manuel Monet, José Calixto Pacheco, Leandro Alviña, and José Domingo Rado) "did nothing more than collect popular melodies that were copied in full on their scores and harmonized with great simplicity" (Pinilla 1988, 143). Regarding composers such as Juan de Dios Aguirre, Roberto Ojeda, and Baltazar Zegarra (three of the musicians known in Cuzco as the "Big Four of Cuzco Music"), who were notable somewhat later, Pinilla notes that, "although they wrote compositions for orchestra, chamber groups, and piano with slight variations vis-à-vis the folkloric original, they were clearly still more on the popular than on the erudite side" (143).
This type of comment, which stresses-sometimes condescendingly-the fact that these cuzqueño musicians relied heavily on the repertoire of the rural and popular-urban culture of their time and did not undertake any major musical elaboration, is considered offensive by Cuzco artists, who even now defend the development of a regional and national music of the sort composed by the classic composers of cuzqueño music (Ojeda 1987, 43). Pablo Ojeda (the son of Roberto and grandson of Mariano), for instance, rejects the "technicist" approach within which some of these comments have been made not just of Cuzco composers "but also against the composers from other parts of Peru who worked with 'melodic phrases' [taken] from Andean folklore" (1987, 44). In addition, "Many believe that to create based on an indigenous melody is simply a matter of technique, [but they do not] realize the trove of indigenous and indigenista spirit one needs for such a delicate task. Some eminent musical technicians have a European influence which often makes them break the beat when working with Andean folkloric music, thus producing flawed versions.... Many likewise believe that the creations of Peruvian composers with an Andean orientation are no more than compilations. Nothing could be farther removed from the truth" (46-47).
The assertions made by Pablo Ojeda, on the one hand, confirm that the musical work of the members of the Cuzco School, like that of other composers of Incaic and nationalist music, was based to a large extent on the contemporary popular rural or urban repertoire. On the other hand, his allusion to the "trove of indigenous and indigenista spirit" also reminds us that one of the major concerns of these musicians was to find elements in the rural and popular-urban traditions that would provide a solid base with which to develop a type of music wherein all sectors of Cuzco's society, and, if possible, all of Peruvian society, would find elements they could consider their own. In this way what was essentially "our own," cuzqueño and/or Peruvian as the case may be, should be strongly rooted in the Andean or highland tradition.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from CREATING OUR OWN by ZOILA S. MENDOZA Copyright © 2008 by Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission.
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