455 results where found for «Zamba so as Not to Die»


Answer Me

Music piece by:
Fred Rauch (lyrics) and Gerhard Winkler (music). English lyrics by Carl Sigman. Recorded by Frankie Laine.
Testimony by:
Luis Cifuentes Seves
Experience in:
« I sang this song, as a soloist, in the dressing rooms of the National Stadium. »
[...]
« This happened when the soldiers allowed artistic performances to take place in the converted dressing rooms while we waited our turn to be interrogated or after returning from interrogations. These were often torture sessions. »
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Dreams of my Imprisonment (Sueños de mi encierro)

Music piece by:
Mario Patricio Cordero Cedraschi
Testimony by:
Mario Patricio Cordero Cedraschi
Experience in:
Cárcel de Valparaíso, Winter of 1975
« I’d spent two years in prison and there was no end in sight for my time in jail. I observed during visiting hours that many prisoners had children, a wife, family. »
[...]
« In my case, however, having been arrested so young and just turned 19, I felt a growing concern that I’d die without bearing children, and never experience this wonderful human feeling. »
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Captive Quena (Quena cautiva)

Music piece by:
Claudio Durán Pardo
Testimony by:
Claudio Durán Pardo
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros, Tres Álamos, September - December 1975
« I first laid my hands on a quena when I was nine years old. It was resplendently fragile and lyrical. My passion for this instrument was immediate, or rather, the quena chose me. »
[...]
« I had been kidnapped and imprisoned for at least eight months when the following occurred. Bored and desolate, I’d go out onto the narrow courtyard in the afternoon and play the quena, always improvising melodies: long notes, silences. . . staccato notes and then longer notes. . . perhaps a huayno. »
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Return, Return (Volver, volver)

Music piece by:
Fernando Z. Maldonado. Popularised by Vicente Fernández
Testimony by:
Jorge Montealegre Iturra
« At the Chacabucan artistic shows, Hugo sang tangos, including 'Volver' (Return) by Gardel and Le Pera. »
[...]
« At that point in the song, the entire captive audience would laugh at a verse that was not just funny but also bold: the word 'torture' was accusatory and symbolised our story prior to being taken to Chacabuco. »
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Errant Wind (Viento errante)

Music piece by:
Patricio Hermosilla Vives
Testimony by:
Patricio Hermosilla Vives
Experience in:
« Finally, in the Chacabuco Concentration Camp, after three days aboard the Policarpo Toro (a war ship which had an uncertain destination since sailing from Valparaíso in December 1973; the question was not when and where we would dock, but how we would fall overboard), I felt that death had decided to take a step back and watch from me from a little further away. »
[...]
« 'Viento Errante ('Errant wind') (composed towards the end of that year during the improvised 'literary workshop' in which Salas, Montealegre, another prisoner and myself, tried to divert the raw pain of those hours, exploring some possible forms of 'existential meaning'), a song more unconscious than conscious, which attempted from its inception to idealise freedom in the shape of a woman without a defined face or name although, on the other hand, she embodied all the roles of a woman: mother, daughter, sister, girlfriend. »
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After the War (Después de la guerra)

Music piece by:
Sandro
Testimony by:
Nelly Andrade Alcaino
« The military officials in charge of the Tejas Verdes camp made us sing. They gave us just one day to select the songs and rehearse. »
[...]
« When they took us out to the prison yard, we sang it with all our might. There was complete silence when we finished. The military officers looked at each other and then ordered that we be returned to the room. The soldiers in the guard towers came down to ask where we had found that song. »
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Creole Mass – Gloria (Misa criolla - Gloria)

Music piece by:
Ariel Ramírez
Testimony by:
Luis Cifuentes Seves
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Chacabuco, November – December 1973
« As far as I remember (and there may be other versions), Los de Chacabuco band was founded by Ángel Parra in response to a request by the Army chaplain Varela, who asked for assistance for the Mass he celebrated for both prisoners and soldiers. »
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Tacit Song (Canción tácita)

Music piece by:
All the women present at that moment in Chacabuco
Testimony by:
Mónica García Cuadra
Experience in:
« I am the daughter of a former political prisoner who spent a long time imprisoned at Chacabuco, among other places. I am Monica, a little 9-year-old girl who travelled with a heavy heart full of sadness to visit her father, Gerardo García Salas, held at the Chacabuco concentration camp. I am an only child and in my young life, he is my sole reference point and, in essence, my image of masculinity. »
[...]
« That song had been written and was in every mind, subtly flooding that arid time and space we were experiencing with loving melodies of struggle. It is the most suffering, most painful, true, symbolic and freedom-loving song I have ever heard in the vast and implacable silence. »
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Amalia Rosa

Music piece by:
Tino Carrasco
Testimony by:
Luis Cifuentes Seves
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Chacabuco, November 1973 - February 1974
« Los de Chacabuco, a band founded and conducted by Ángel Parra, performed this Venezuelan folk song, in the style of a joropo, singing it at the weekly prison camp show. I dare say it was one of the favourite songs of the audience, comprised of political prisoners. »
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With the Sprouts I Sowed (Y con brotes de mi siembra)

Music piece by:
Andrés Rivanera (lyrics) and Eugenio Moglia (music). Popularised by Los Moros and Jorge Yáñez.
Testimony by:
Guillermo Orrego Valdebenito
« In Chacabuco there were two theatres: one that was very beautiful and was linked to the old saltpetre works, where it is claimed (wrongly as it happens) that Caruso once performed, and another theatre that was inside the concentration camp. »
[...]
« You can just imagine the answer that came back from the almost 1000 prisoners in the audience, full of force and inspiration. The din was such that the performance had to be stopped for a few moments, as the laughter and jokes exceeded everyone’s expectations. »
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