Technology for the Resistance: A Latin American Case

Cultural resistance was in the Uruguayan case the principal political weapon against Fascism, torture and death. 12 The task was risky, but the risks were accepted as an unavoidable condition. Since the beginning, links were established with particular artists or labels in other countries,13 some of which produced curious experiences. Since 1974 Ayufs catalogue has tried to rescue some popular musicians isolated by the dictatorship," launching a new generation of creators and performers" who would have a fundamental role once the previous generation was silenced in 1973 by the second period of the dictatorship. The catalogue contains quality records for children,32 some foreign popular musicians33 including Latin American monuments like Bola de Nieve 14 or Violeta Parra,35 as well as musicological documentation on the payador tradition.36 Ayui becomes in this way a kind of fulcrum for the musical resistance against the dictatorship and a key to understanding how this important movement led by a very courageous young generation could go through the walls of strong control exerted by the military regime. Since 1984, the catalogue of Ayui has grown with names from a forbidden past" and names not forbidden,38 as well as with many new and important young musicians .31 It seems, however, that the most meaningful task-and the most difficult one-has been the support given to the new generation of creators and performers born during the 1950s which, apart from having become the main phenomenon in the civil resistance against the dictatorship, has reestablished the basis for the choice of genre references. First Carlos Canzani and Los Eduardos, and then Jaime Roos, the group Los que iban cantando and its members Jorge Bonaldi, Jorge Lazaroff and Luis Troch6n, Leo Masliah, Ruben Olivera, the trio Montresvideo, the ensemble Rumbo,Jorge Galemire, the trio Travesia, and others. 32.