Photographer credit: © fe31lopz
« No puede haber una revolucion sin canciones »
"There is no revolution without songs"
Salvador Allende
Introduction
As Chile's newly elected President Salvador Allende took to the podium in November 1970 to congratulate the jubilant people, a banner could be seen above his head reading, "You can't have a revolution without songs." A few years later, Pinochet's military dictatorship, in an effort to censor the "Nueva Canción" movement, banned the use of many Andean musical instruments...
From folklore to resistance, stories, a story...
The Nueva Canción has its roots in the protest movements of the 1970s in South America. It is a musical form of the Protest Song type, inspired by a re-appropriation of indigenous folklore as well as the collection of traditional songs, set to poetic, social, and protest texts.
During the 1970s, multiple dictatorships were established in South America, in a context of Cold War and the establishment of an ultra-liberal economic laboratory inspired by the theories of Milton Friedman and under the impetus of the Chicago Boys (a group of radical economists from the University of Chicago). Thus in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, coups d'état followed one another, leaving in place for many years (until the 1990s for some of them) bloody military dictatorships. In most of these countries, public services were privatized or simply destroyed, closed (health, education, universities, pensions). The rule of law disappeared. Unions were banned, and national wealth privatized for the benefit of large multinationals and a small far-right oligarchy. Citizens finding themselves deprived of everything and at the mercy of fierce repression (disappearances, torture, mass executions, arbitrary imprisonment, etc.) nevertheless resisted during these dark years by rebuilding a parallel society of solidarity and resistance in small associative structures and large protest movements (strikes, passive resistance, guerrilla movement).
In this exceptional context, where human rights were systematically denied, certain South American artists took a special place in the resistance of civil society to the barbarity of dictators. Many of them experienced prison and torture, exile and sometimes death. Thus the poets, musicians, and singers who made up the body of the Nueva Canción paid a heavy price in the march towards freedom of all these nations. Yet they carried the hopes of freedom and democracy of the South American peoples and made known to the whole world through their art, the struggle of oppressed peoples, creating an international mobilization, which would ultimately weigh in the process of returning to democracy.
The main authors of the “Nueva Cancion”
in the Vidala repertoire
Víctor Jara (Chile)
Born in 1932 in San Ignacio. One of the main figures of the Nueva Cancion Chilena. Author and composer of numerous protest songs, collaborator of the group Quilapayun, professor, theater director, cultural ambassador of Chilean President Salvador Allende, he supported the Popular Unity movement. He was assassinated by the Pinochet junta on September 13, 1973 at the Estadio de Chile. We owe him “Manifiesto”, a true profession of faith of the Nueva Cancion.
Violeta Parra (Chile)
Born in 1917. Multidisciplinary artist, singer-songwriter, and pioneer of the Nueva Cancion Chilena. She began collecting popular folk songs from her country in the 1950s, cataloging them and recording a good number of them, thus saving nearly 2,000 songs, which are now part of her country's heritage. She wrote many songs, both poetic and protest, including "Gracias a la Vida" which toured the world. She committed suicide on February 5, 1967.
Mercedes Sosa (Argentina)
Born in 1935. A multidisciplinary artist (film, song) known as “la Negra,” she was involved in the Nueva Cancion. Performer of Violeta Parra, Victor Jara, but also the poems of Felix Luna, she enjoyed immense international success. Imprisoned in 1979, she was exiled to Paris and then to Madrid. She became a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for South America and the Caribbean. She died in 2009 in Buenos Aires.
Atahualpa Yupanqui (Argentina)
Born in 1908. Poet, composer and virtuoso guitarist. From a young age he visited his country and then Bolivia, discovering the beauty of the wide open spaces and the appalling conditions in which the miners, workers and peasants lived. He became the spokesperson for the people through his songs. Forced into exile, following numerous imprisonments, he became known in France by opening for Edith Piaf. He wrote more than 1,500 songs inspired by the folk music of his country, including “Duerme Negrito” and “Basta Ya”.
Daniel Viglietti (Uruguay)
Born in 1939 in Montevideo. Author composer, he participated in the resistance review Marcha, and created the Nucleus of Musical Education, arrested in 1972, after an intense international campaign in favor of his release led by Jean Paul Sartre, François Mitterrand, among others, he was exiled in Argentina, then in France, where he lived for 11 years, he continued his work by touring around the world to denounce through his songs, the Uruguayan dictatorship and other South American dictatorships, he returned in 1984 to Uruguay, where he was welcomed as a hero. These songs are performed in many countries, by Victor Jara, Manuel Serrat, Mercedes Sosa or Chavela Vargas