IMAGINARY WORLDS
The Symphony of the Batoutos

My feet have never touched grass as soft as that in the Mehatse pass, nestled between Iguzkimendi and Artzamendi. Trampled by animals, every step becomes a caress. Perhaps walking barefoot there connects us to a nearly forgotten yet still vibrant imagination — one that moves us, just like the standing stones that once bloomed here. We call them "mairu-baratze", necropolis-gardens of the "maïru". These are gates between worlds, watching over the Pyrenean peaks to the east and the sea to the west since ancient times.

When I was little, perched on the shoulders of a Shawnee poet at the heart of a cromlech, he parted the fog that had rolled in from the sea... It became a smoke of words — the words of the maïru. We hid our story in the myths of the Jentils, afraid Kixmi would destroy it. A part of our Basque identity lies buried in mythology, protected from a colonizing mindset.

What did Mandela think of, writing letters from Robben Island that would never be sent? How did he nurture his inner garden — the one that would, thirty years later, change South Africa and the world? What is Leonard Peltier still thinking about today?

The imagination brings possibility to reality. To change the world, we must first change our collective imaginaries, nurturing liberty and biocultural diversity.

Errobiko Festibala is one of those fleeting moments where multicolored seeds bloom in fertile minds, nourished by the words of Joxean Artze, Itxaro Borda, Édouard Glissant, Barney Bush, Danyèl Waro, and the hundreds of artists who have performed here for nearly 30 years. What futures do we want to invent?

This year, we celebrate the Imaginary Worlds in three acts, three chants, three interwoven shivers:

• Original or reinvented rootedness: What is a culture, a language, if not a collective imagination built generation after generation? Even if the world has changed, we still drink from that ancient source whose water is always new.
• Suspended dream: through singing, dancing, contemplation, and trance, we nourish ourselves with these suspended moments offered by Errobiko Festibala. They are the threads with which we weave our nighttime dreams — the ones that clothe us during the day. Toward the summit of Ursuya, at the edge of dawn, neither day nor night falls.
• Dreamed reality of lived utopia: this edition is dedicated to the Batoutos, that imaginary people created by Édouard Glissant, who "keep watch wherever our hopes have not yet met our actions." In a world where capitalism and nationalism have reduced imagination to efficiency and individualism — to the point where apartheid becomes acceptable, and the extinction of species and cultures tolerable — we affirm the essential nature of dreams, poetry, and lived utopia.

Welcome to the forge of dreams. See you in Itxassou — Ongi Etorri Deneri!

— For Ezkandrai, Julen Achiary
Artistic Director of the Festival

A l’heure où paraitront ces lignes, il ne manquera que peu de jours avant le scrutin qui va désigner les députés sur le territoire français.

Quoi qu’il en résulte, les partis d’extrême droite et leur idéologie auront au moins gagné nos places, avec ou sans majorité en sièges de pouvoir là-bas. Cela changera tout ou beaucoup à échéances immédiates et plus lointaines, entre autres, pour les secteurs de la culture, de la création et plus généralement du milieu des artistes.

Désolé de paraître si inquiet ou alarmiste. Nos places, avec leurs frontons de pelote et nos centres de village, sont à la fois pivots et sommets de la vie sociale. Nous voulons qu’elles demeurent longtemps lieux d’expression du chant, de la danse et de la musique, nous voulons qu’elles résistent pour toujours comme le champ d’expression libre et critique des artistes et des citoyens, et nous voulons qu’elles continuent d’être la carrière qui permet le développement de l’euskara.

Le sculpteur sur pierre va façonner le bloc de grès au rythme des musiques et chants du Pays Basque et des peuples du monde lors de cette édition d’Errobiko Festibala. Nous, habitants d’Itxassou, dresserons à l’automne cette pierre transformée à la forge du festival. L’œuvre restera comme témoin de notre mal de liberté, comme appel à solidarité et comme sentinelle de la justice.

Bravo à tous les artistes qui se produiront sur la place d’Atharri, et merci à tous les itsasuar et euskal herritar qui s’y déplaceront. Nous devons affirmer en priorité que les places publiques sont à nous, cœur de nos villages et cœur de nos vies.

Mizel Hiribarren, maire d’Itxassou