PALAVERS – SECOND STOP

In 30 years of adventure and encounters, wonderful musicians, dancers, visual artists, poets, philosophers and writers have left a unique mark on Errobiko, weaving its vibrant identity, made of roots, sharing and crossings. All of them had this in common: they embodied their art, their land, sometimes both at once.

The encounter with Édouard Glissant was fundamental. It allowed us to put words to what we already sensed, and to live it even more intensely. We then built our archipelagos, explored our vessels. Since then, Errobiko Festibala has upheld its fragile promise of a hospitable land where cultures do not close in on themselves, but meet on equal footing. We believe in relation rather than borders, in creolization rather than the walls and fortresses of empires.

We have not forgotten crushed peoples and languages, oppressed genders, nor memories trampled by colonization. We will not forget all those voices that imperialisms would like to silence. For every song saved by memory or born from rooted creation, every poem passed on or invented, every language spoken despite oppression is already a victory against erasure, against the disappearance of species and cultures.

At a time when racism, discrimination, fascisms and armed conflicts trample life… when mass media and warmongers tend to make the unacceptable acceptable… Is a utopia in action, a peaceful resistance such as Errobiko Festibala, necessary?