Studies in Latin American Popular Culture

Abstract:

Between 2017 and 2018, amid the centenary of the birth of Violeta Parra, a collective and interdisciplinary creation project had been carried out with three productions (scenic, videographic, and performative) around the life and work of the Chilean artist involving the combination of body, memory, and empathy. In this article we address the methodology of the different parts of the creative process: (1) the scenic one, Color Violeta at the Albéitar theater (Universidad de León, España); (2) the videographic one, with the short Color Violeta: Pliegues de la memoria released in the II International Festival of Expanded Corporality (Buenos Aires, Argentina); and (3) the performative one, Memoria(s) Color Violeta, a gathering of collective improvisation that was formulated as a body approaching the singer-songwriter’s creative imaginary. The processes of body, memory, and empathy that sustain the aesthetics of Violeta Parra energize and expand Chilean popular culture, and this is connected with our own experience. The corporal approach to the memory of the other is revealed to us, in this research, as a possibility for building our own identity.