bertsolaritza

The Basque langauge was not written down until 1545. Before that it was only a spoken language. For this reason, the oral tradition of Euskara has traditionally been much richer than the written one, although that is changing as people write much more in Eusakara, but the oral tradition still survives just as strongly. By oral tradition I mean stories, jokes, and riddles, but especially singing.

This is what bertsolaritza is. It is an extremely nuanced art of improvisational singing. There are three main things that are important for singing bertsos: melody, rhyme, and meter. These obviously restrict what can be said or rather how something can be said, but they also work as guides to help the person reach their desired point with improvisation. The usual technique is to think of the last line first, then figure out how to get there on the way, using the melody, rhyme, and meter as guidelines. There are hundreds of traditional melodies that can be used, as well as using those of popular songs, and this goes with meter as well. The rhyme scheme is part of the structure, but the rhymes that go in the designated places can be determined by the bertsolari or by the gai jartzailea, the person in charge of setting the subjects in a bertsolaritza competition.

Historically, bertsolaritza has been extremely important in preserving not only stories and histories, but the basque language itself. Like all things Basque, it was outlawed under Franco, and bertsolaritza itself was probably one of the best tools for preserving the language. The dual act of learning and then reciting various bertsos helps ingrain it in memory much more strongly than only by route memorization. Bertsolaritza is also a source of Basque national pride, because with basqueness and Basque country so difficult to define, it is at least clear that those who sing and like bertsos are Basques.

Nowadays it seems as if there is a pretty strong future for bertsolaritza, with probably the highest number of people possessing the art in history, there are around 1300 different bertso events each year in all of Euskal Herria, including many competitions which draw thousands of people that sit in complete silence for multiple hours on end to hear bertsos. There also exist bertsolaritza schools in which people of various ages can learn the techniques and art of bertsolaritza. There are also an increasing number of women participating in bertsolaritza. It is still a male-dominated art, but at least a few of the people that participate in the highest competitions are women.

I have seen a decent amount of bertsolaritza by now. The first time was around 2 or 3 weeks into my stay here and I went with my intercambio to an event they had downtown one saturday afternoon where the bertsolaris were singing in the street, and then later in some of the downtown bars. In the plaza there was some news coverage of the event, and the camera man and reporter came up to me and asked me what assumably meant something like "What do you think" in Basque, and my intercambio told him I wasn´t going to understand because I was from Washington, but this only made them more interested in my opinion, and they asked me the same thing again, and gestured towards the singers in a manner that I took to mean they wanted me to talk about what was happening, so I said in terrible castellano that I liked it and that I was with my intercambio who knew a lot more about it than me, or thats what I tried to say. I have since met people in Tolosa that knew me from seeing me on television, haha.

Last Saturday, I went to Beasain for an event they had there that was a mix between a celebration for a political prisoner that was recently released and returned home, and a protest for the incarceration and dispersement of the remaining political prisoners. I went with my intercambio, his coworker from Italy, and his coworkers girlfriend from Colombia. We were quite the international group. It was good to have other people that don´t understand Euskara there to relate with, and a fellow american as well. They had people playing Basque music, Bertsolaritza, and at one point some girls started doing some Basque dancing as well. After this we went to my intercambios farmhouse, which was in Baliarrain, and which was so beautiful. They have this farmhouse that is in the middle of like super authentic Basque country, surrounded by misty green hills. That was really cool. Then we went to Tolosa, a place I am starting to feel relatively familar with, and ate and drank a little and played card games. Then I went and hung out with some americans and a Cuban Basque and ate some traditional Basque food and drank bottled cider.

Last Monday, USAC had a bertsolari come and speak to us first in English, and then for more complicated things in Castellano, about bertsolaritza and why its important and how they are sung. Before he spoke, someone in the audience had told him that I had been in Beasain two days before so he pointed me out during his speech. He sang us some bertsos in English, which was really impressive because its a totally different language than they usually do them in, and one in Euskara, as well as reciting a Cuban style verse in Castellano.

The most frustrating thing in all of these cases is my lack of comprehension of Euskara, it is slowly coming along, but in the bertsos all I can ever understand are words like "and", "boy", and maybe a few adjectives now, but not nearly enough to be able to really appreciate the art of the thing. I know its impressive, but I´m not able to specifically understand why.