Victor without Victor Jara

Descending the stairs, a group of 40 performers – one for each year that has passed since the military coup – enters the scene singing Canto libre. Five relatives of executed politicians, five musicians and 30 actors perform the cantata that includes the figure of Víctor Jara and the present of his murderers, to talk about so many other victims of the dictatorship.

A cast headed by Alejandro Sieveking, Catalina Saavedra, Regildo Castro, Emilia Noguera, Alessandra Guerzoni, Ema Pinto (also vocal director of the performance), Grimanesa Jiménez, Norma Norma Ortíz, María Olga Matte, Cristina Aburto and Camila Hirane, make up Víctor sin Víctor Jara.

"The name also means the same thing, that he can be as anyone can be. He is neither a protagonist nor a hero, because he never wanted to be. He depersonalizes his story in the service of representing that of many others, sometimes anonymous," explains Visnu Ibarra who, together with his brother Gopal (Luis Emilio II) and Pierre Sauré (Witness), directs the project that was born from the AFEP (Group of Relatives of Executed Politically Executed) and that in little more of one hour, plays with customs, irony, languages and theatrical conventions.

Written by Gopal Ibarra in prose and free verse, the work has choreographies by Hiranio Chávez and goes through experiences of childhood, youth, studies and connection with art, set to music by 10 songs by the singer-songwriter – such as La departure, Manifesto, El arado, Las casitas del barrio alto, Móvil oil special – and others from popular folklore that are performed live by a choir that symbolizes society, a “container” from where different narratives are born. “What better than to use their songs as a flag of struggle.”

For the love of Victor, for the love of art

As in all the synchronicities that usually occur in this type of work, Pierre Sauré chanced to meet Pablo Núñez, son of the national art prize winner, Guillermo Núñez. "Call my dad, he told me. He was Víctor's set designer for a long time. I went to his house, I proposed the idea to him and he liked it," says the director about the contact that materialized in the illustration that Nuñez donated for Víctor without Víctor Jara. With a work strongly marked by his arrest in 1974 at the Air Force War Academy, through this contribution the artist pays tribute to the musician with whom he worked very directly in his role as theater director, forging a close relationship of friendship and creative collaboration.

Previous seasons

The premiere of Víctor sin Víctor Jara took place during September 2013. Five thousand spectators watched the first season of this AFEP cantata at GAM, which brings together more than 40 artists on stage in a moving journey through the music and figure of the emblematic national singer-songwriter.