Basque Bertsolaritza
Poet: Maialen Lujanbio Footage
Courtesy of: Asier Altuna, Bertsolari
Cinematography: Gaizka Bourgeaud
To watch the full documentary, In the Moment: Poetry Duels and Improvisations click here.
Table of Contents
The Tradition
Bertsolaritza is the Basque art of improvising songs using traditional melodies and rhyming patterns. Individual verses are called bertsos; singers, bertsolari. Events take place in formal competitions, in homage ceremonies, at special lunches and dinners, or with friends for pure enjoyment. Formal competitions are often called a bertsolari txapelketa, a “bertsolari competition.” Here bertsolari singers compete against each other for the txapela, the “winner’s beret.” Most often, the singer is unaccompanied, often singing a bertso using the melody of traditional songs from the Basque culture.
At formal competitions, singers are challenged by the the gai-jartzaile, the “subject setter” to improvise on different themes using a particular tune and meter. They may be asked to extemporize on a Gartzelako Lana “Prison Cell Task” in which the bertsolari has to compose and sing a bertso to a given topic; or an Elkarrizketa “Conversation” in which two bertsolaris have to deal with the topic together, singing the stanzas in turns and responding to the previous statement. Some common bertso challenges require the bertsolari to include a particular word or the four rhyming words in their improvised bertso. Topics may range from world politics to sex, and humor is encouraged. The Great Bertsolari Championship (Bertsolari Txapelketa Nagusia), begun in 1935, is held every four years among bertsolaris from all over the Basque Country filling an entire stadium.
In addition to the tradition in the Basque region of Spain, more than 60,000 Basques reside in the U.S., and celebrate their Bertsolaritza tradition here. An annual competition has been held since 1988 in Gardnerville, Nevada. In 2003, Jesus Arriada, Johnny Curutchet, Martin Goicoechea, and Jesus Goni received a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts for delighting audiences across the American West with their fast-paced artful vocal improvisations and for sustaining their culture’s language and artistic expression.
Field Notes
In 2006, City Lore and the Bowery Poetry Club dedicated our People’s Poetry Gathering to a celebration of the world’s endangered languages. For the event, we brought the Basque Heritage Award winners to New York, and hosted a Basque dinner and bertsolaritza performance at the Bowery Poetry Club. In 2013, the Smithsonian’s Folklife festival brought the Basque singers to the National Mall, and, some time later, interviewed Johnny Curutchet and Martin Goicoechea about the tradition. In a Smithsonian posting by Elisa Hough, Martin notes that the preparation for a contest “is like walking backwards. You find the punchline that you’re going to end with, and you find that rhyme. Then you find other rhymes to match it, and you start singing…. Beyond the rhymes, you have to pick a tune. You have to choose the words and syllables to fit in the tune. If it’s sad subject, you usually pick a sad melody. If it’s happy, you take a livelier melody. We don’t usually use the same melodies at weddings as we would at funerals. You can have people laughing, and we can also make people cry.” Later Curutchet adds, “Sometimes it doesn’t come out the way we want it. It’s like when you prepare food: it might not be good, but it’s going to be edible.”
As we were beginning to work on putting together the documentary In the Moment: Poetry Duels and Improvisations, our friend and poet Bob Holman told us about Asier Atuna’s 2011 exquisite documentary, Bertsolari. Rebecca Naughten posted a review of the film.“As the bertsolaris describe the experience of performing ‘bertsolaritza’, director Asier Altuna visually represents their metaphors – whether that is the sense of standing on the edge of an abyss as they approach the microphone, or the idea of leaving the audience on the beach and letting your words break like waves on the shore. Mental thought processes are also visually rendered, for example as walls or beaches covered in words, as well as talked through in terms of how one might go about practicing for an improvisation. . . Altuna gradually builds up a picture of the practice and experience through different aspects of the whole – folklore/oral tradition, linguistics, the performative and the neurological. That might make it sound drily analytical but it is a beautiful film that manages to marry word, image, and music in a way that does justice to the poetry conjured up by the people it celebrates.”
Altuna had the good fortune of filming his documentary in 2011, the year that a woman, Maialen Lujanbio, won the trophy in the national competition for the first time. With his brilliant documentation of the tradition, we asked for and received permission to include an 8 minute for In the Moment.
Transcript
MAIALEN
The land of the bertsos is the land of the Basque language. Bertsolaritza is linked to the land. Its roots dive down deeply into the land itself.
ED HIRSCH
I’ve always been amazed by these poets who are given a subject and then have to improvise and then have to improvise a poem on the subject—that’s a perfect case where you can’t have all your thoughts worked out – say on the subject of fire—you’re given a subject and then have to think what you think about it by working through the form.
ANNOUNCER
Your topic, Maialen, for a 9-verse rhyme: Fire. You must develop the topic, fire.
MAIALEN
What an invention,
by homo habilis,
with intuition and intention,
he rubbed two stones together
and a spark came to be,
Fire is the flame between two glances…
Fire is the flame between two glances.
I express myself through and around the bertso. The bertso helps me understand myself. What’s more, it has become my way of expressing myself. I would even say it is a part of me, it is within me.
You are aware of the silence, of time, if you are taking advantage of it or taking too long. If you are struggling with a bertso, fighting to make it bend to your will, as if you had to stuff the words in by hand one by one. You are aware of the density of time. The tension of the silence tells you when to start. When the bertsolari can no longer take the silence, then it is time to start.
A silence,
a magic silence giving out mind license.
Only words dare exist,
words that expression cannot resist.
Bertsolaritza reminds us
of an ancient Chinese proverb
whose first rule advises us:
“Don’t break the silence
unless you are sure
to increase its radiance.
To increase its radiance.”
In the past, women did not sing in public. We have taken a great step, perhaps the bravest one. But we still don’t know how to speak naturally about the most intimate world of women. There are still subjects that are hard to speak about, subjects that still make us feel uncomfortable. Taboo subjects with no social prestige. We find it hard to joke about women, their world, their behavior, the way they dress. Yet, if it’s about men, we do it quite naturally. When we strip a person of humor, we leave them incomplete.
ANNOUNCER
With 1,630.75 points the winner of the 2009 championship final is Maialen Lujanbio.
