JAKARTA — As a solitary voice intoned a traditional Indonesian harvest song, dancers acted out the gathering of rice. Members of the audience joined in — most knew the words — until the song was overtaken by a vigorous hip-hop backbeat.

Women in military uniforms stormed the stage. A man in drag rapped while these “soldiers” assaulted the “farmers.” In the end, bodies of victims lay about. A sober audience broke into applause.

The performance marked the release of “Breaking the Silence,” a collective memoir of 15 men and women who experienced the anti-Communist purges in 1965-66, an event that left at least 500,000 people dead and ushered in the 32-year rule of Suharto and his “New Order.”

It is one of the darkest but seldom-discussed periods in modern Indonesian history. But the new book is only part of an emerging examination of this long-suppressed subject. In November, there was the release of “Sang Penari ,” a feature film that depicts the unfolding of a love story against the backdrop of that tumultuous time. The newsweekly Tempo recently published a special report on an army commander who had led efforts to wipe out the Indonesian Communist Party, or P.K.I.