Imagine selling 14,000 tickets for oral poetry.
Imagine further an entire 6-7 hours of live performances broadcast on regional television
as they happen, with excerpts, summaries,
and expert commentary on national television.
Imagine a one-day event
—the final act in a multi-stage, four-year, Olympian drama of qualification and elimination—
galvanizing ethnic, national identity to a degree unparalleled virtually anywhere in the world.
Imagine the confluence of all of these phenomena and you have the Bertsolari Txapelketa,
the national championship of bertsolaritza, the improvised contest poetry from Basque oral tradition,
which takes place every four years in the Basque Country, Spain, since 1936.
The Basque Country or Euskal Herria is the land of Basques, a region that comprises
the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country and Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque Country in France.
Their language, Basque or euskara, classified as an isolated language,
is considered the last remaining vestige of the pre-Indo-European languages of Western Europe.
It is spoken by more than 900.000 inhabitants in both sides of the territory.
Euskera may be the oldest language in Europe, and its origins are still a mystery.
However, the greatest mystery of the Basque language resides not in its origins, but in its subsistence over the centuries.
Nowadays Basque is composed of a unified version created in 1968
and five dialects, all of them strongly rooted into oral usage.
Bertsolaritza, as a great example of the vitality of the Basque language,
is one of the expressions of Basque traditions that are still very much alive.
According to a survey conducted in 2006, 67% of Basque speakers follow with interest bertsolari contests
and specially the national championship that takes place every four years.
Bertsolari Txapelketa, the national championship of bertsolaritza, gathers the best improvisers
in quarter and semifinal rounds that take place in the 7 Basque Provinces.
A well-trained jury exhaustively evaluates the performance of the bertsolaris round by round,
and finally chooses the best 7 that will join the winner
of the previous championship in the grand final day.
The best bertsolari of the championship must show great artistry through a various set of performative tasks,
showing quick capacity of response in paired sung conversations and talented creativity in solo performances.
Andoni Egaña, Amets Arzallus and Maialen Lujanbio are the winners of the XXI century editions,
being Maialen the first woman ever to get the title in 2009.
They are called txapeldunak or beret holders,
since the winner gets the traditional champion's cap as a symbol of his or her achievement.
The rules for competitive bertsolaritza are at once straightforward and extremely demanding.
"Dad gave you a hug like never before!"
An emcee reads a topic or prompts to the contestants, who then have a few seconds -usually less than a minute-
to assemble an 8-12-line poem along the pattern of a prescribed verse-form
to assemble an 8-12-line poem along the pattern of a prescribed verse-form that also involves a rhyme scheme.
Melodies are chosen from among hundreds of traditional tunes.
In other words, poets must fit their unique, never before realized ideas into a highly complex framework
In other words, poets must fit their unique, never before realized ideas into a highly complex framework
of rules and patterns, and they must accomplish all these tasks concurrently in extemporaneous performance.
But… what is bertsolaritza?
We know there are many oral traditions around the globe,
so we decided to ask some of our "siblings" about how they would define bertsolaritza in their own countries.
Bertsolaritza is an oral folk tradition which has experienced incredible revitalisation in recent years.
Bertsolaritza, it is quite hard to describe, it is a kind of improvisation poetry.
There are many elements involved. Participants have to think up a poem or bertso within twenty seconds or so.
A mental scriptwriter.
It is also like a game of baseball, or football, in which you never know what is going to happen next.
I see an extraordinary celebration of the language and by extension of Basque culture and identity.
Bertsolaritza is the analogue of the glosa in Catalonia,
but first we should explain what the glosa is in Catalonia, because a lot of people do not know it.
It is incredible the ability to listen that improvisers have:
the contrast between silence and listening to the singer.
What more impresses me is the ability of giving strength to a universal communicating register.
How could we define bertsolaritza in one word?
Is it tradition? Is it literature? Is it folklore?
Yes, all these words could fit in a wide concept of Basque oral sung improvisation,
but the best term is… communication.
Communication with the audience, communication between improvisers…
bertsolaritza doesn't occur if there is no communication.
However, bertsolaritza is not a mere communication;
there are actually three conditions that any message needs to fulfill
in order to become a bertso: can you identify them in the following sketch?
Hello, everybody. It does not matter if you are Asian, American, European or Basque.
In fact, we all are part of the same world and we are all friends.
However, since we don't know too much about others' traditions and customs,
we have considered that it was a good idea gathering you all here today,
to learn what is bertsolaritza.
No matter you are Asian, American, European or Basque;
We all belong to the same world, we are all friends.
But we don't know a lot about others and their traditions;
Let's discover all together what is bertsolaritza.
Yes! Bertsolaritza is measured, rhyming, sung communication.
The performance occurs when the bertsolari, the person adept in this art,
improvises a sung bertso, a poetic speech, about a specific theme that has been suggested.
The artist must follow strict rules concerning metre and rhyme
and only has a few seconds between hearing the theme and starting to sing.
The bertsolari is, as such, a singer who improvises to the public
and a bertso is a complete stanza,
even though the term bertso derives from Latin for "verse", meaning a single line.
Let's dig into the 3 characteristics that transform direct communication into the art of bertsolaritza.
Bertsolaris, unlike the majority of improvisers known in the world today,
perform without the help of any musical instrument.
The airs they use to improvise could have three origins:
- they could be traditional folk melodies, popular tunes shared by the whole community;
they could be melodies specifically composed to show the tessitura or improvising skills
of some particular bertsolari; or
they could just be any contemporary song with a structure that matches
with the metric used to perform bertsos.
The air of a bertso is like the soundtrack of a film:
just the first notes let the audience imagine if the improvisation is going to be a hilarious comedy or a sad drama.
Joanito Dorronsoro, the most representative researcher of the field
examined and classified more than 3.000 airs which are available
at bdb.bertsozale.eus.
Rhyme is the formal quid of the bertso; without the rhyme, there is no bertso
Bersolaris strive at making the entire final syllable of the rhyming words,
as well the vowels in the previous syllables, sound alike.
A rhyme is considered poor when only the vowels in the final syllables have the same sound,
or if the rhyme is made by adding a suffix or using different forms of the same verb.
Rhyme has a double use in oral traditions, and bertsolaritza is a clear example of both:
On one hand, rhymes are the essential guidelines for a bertsolari,
since improvised creation is carried out step by step, rhyme by rhyme.
Let's imagine that rhymes are the lights of a landing strip that the pilot,
in this case the bertsolari, follows one by one, reaching the end of the runway totally safe.
On the other hand, rhymes allow the audience to remember the most significant performances.
Since their essence is repetition, the higher the intensity
and quality of their consonance,
the easier the audience will keep in mind a bertso.
Regarding metre, Basque is a non-stressed language that has little differentiation of syllable length,
and, as a result, bertsolaritza bases its verses on the number of syllables only;
no position of any particular stressed syllable needs to be fixed.
As for the number of verses, there is a wide variety of stanzas that can be used.
The more the verses, the greater the number of rhymes ...
and the greater danger of making a mistake,
but also greater the possibility of achieving excellence if successfully performed.
Contemporary bertsolaris are promoting longer structures
that allow them demonstrate their originality and the soundness of their discourse.
However, bertsolaris can never utter what they exactly wish to say.
They say what the metre and the rhyming words allow them to say.
There does not exist a bertsolari who says what they want to say and,
at the same time, have metre and rhyme.
There are bertsolaris who rhyme and use metre and, moreover,
who, in moments of lucidity and inspiration, come very close to what they wish to say.
And how do bertsolaris improvise?
The essence of the question lies in how they can manage, in less than 1 minute,
to attract the attention of the recipient and keep the listener glued to the bertso.
To this end, bertsolaris have a basic strategy which is used in a systematic way: think up the end first.
To this end, bertsolaris have a basic strategy which is used in a systematic way: think up the end first.
Bertsolaris, on hearing a proposed theme, turn on their mental machinery.
They firstly try to find quickly the core ideas of their performance:
they think about what they are going to say and intuitively
plan in which order they are going to say it,
keeping the most potent and elaborate message for the end.
Simultaneously, they select the air to sing, which must be consistent with the content of the bertsos.
Once the punch line is prepared and the air is chosen, bertsolaris need to check
if they have stored enough rhymes in their mind's eye,
so that they can finish the bertso before running out of them or repeating them.
After no more than a minute, bertsolaris start to sing
and, as they go along, try to express the subject matter,
always supported by memory to ensure that the oral punch line at the end,
thought up at the beginning, has not been forgotten.
Everything else that is said throughout the bertso basically
sets the stage, leading up to the final punch-line.
This is the verse that bears the weight of the entire bertso, giving it its reason for being.
If it is good, it will remain etched in the audience's memory.
Let's see a live example:
This is Maialen. Maialen has agreed to share with us her thoughts.
We are going to ask her to sing a bertso about the following topic: "XXX".
She has a minute before starting to sing, so let's set up the alarm.
After a quick brain storming, she has decided to keep the following sentence for the end:
According to the content she is working on, she has chosen a joyful air called XXX.
She is now checking her rhymes.
It seems that she has got plenty of them stored, so she is ready to start singing.
We almost forgot to say that after each bertso the audience is invited to applause.
Well done, Maddalen!
How strong is the art of bertsolaris nowadays?
There is no doubt that it might be the strongest oral improvised tradition in Europe.
Currently, more than 200 bertsolaris perform in more than 1700 events
that take place in open spaces, theatres or even restaurants.
They learn the secrets of improvisation in one of the 120 bertso schools
that weekly offer classes to newcomers, veterans and professionals.
These non-formal schools were created at the beginning of the 80's,
a time when it was thought that bertsolaritza was an innate talent that could not be learnt.
Thanks to bertso eskolas and the prominent work of Xabier Amuriza,
who wrote the first methods to learn verse singing,
nowadays bertsolaritza is an art accessible for every Basque speaker,
to the point that many bertsolaris come from families that don't speak Basque.
As for age, gender or origin, there is no standard bertsolari.
For instance, in the national championship of 2017 13 women and 30 men took part,
all from different ages and regions of the Basque Country.
The youngest bertsolaris are not even in their twenties,
and they can share the scene with the oldest performers, 80 year-old men.
Since the beginning of the XXI century, women are gaining momentum in festivals and contests,
and the art itself is evolving with new topics and approaches.
The typology of events in which bertsolaris take part can vary depending on the context
and the amount of performers:
they can be simple performances which consist of two improvisers
singing for the guests in a restaurant right after a meal;
a four-bertsolari act in the main square of a village during Patron Saint's festivities and fairs;
or six bertsolari festivals in local theatres and frontons.
Many examples can be found at bertsoa.eus, a website with the most updated bertso events.
In 1987, bertsolaris founded Bertsozale Elkartea or the Association of Friends of Bertsolaritza
with the intention to preserve and promote their art.
This non-profit-making sociocultural entity brings together more than 2.500 bertsolaris and supporters of bertsolaritza.
The Association is in charge of the organization of regional and national contests,
the promotion of the art in radio, tv and the Internet, the inclusion of the art in primary education,
and the systematic archiving of significant events and publications related to bertsolaritza.
For more information, check bertsozale.eus.
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