Symphony of the Batoutos

The Batoutos are an imaginary people, invented by Édouard Glissant. They “watch over wherever our hopes have not yet met our actions.” A great source of inspiration, we pay tribute to them with this creation, which will be the highlight of two days of meetings between artists with rich and rooted imaginations.

They will create together, weaving around the three acts of the festival the threads of their instruments, voices, and the poems of Édouard Glissant, Itxaro Borda, and Joxean Artze — releasing the collective energy of dance.

First stop: Original or reinvented rootedness.
A suspension of dreams, towards trance and dance.
A manifesto for a lived utopia.

In a world where capitalism and nationalism have shrunk imagination into the logic of efficiency and individualism — to the point of making apartheid acceptable, to the point of accepting the extinction of species and cultures — we assert the vital importance of dreams, poetry, and lived utopia.