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

From the meadow of Atharri, "those of Errobiko Festibala" invite us this year to sail toward imaginary worlds.

The world of dreams is essential for each and every one of us: the silent and intimate, the visible and shared... some see it in brilliant blue and call it the sky. Others see it in deep green and pray to nature. Those who see it in red or black believe in social justice.

We Basques have this dream of liberating our land, with our language as the key to becoming citizens of it, with this dream of autonomy, to live hand in hand with others, those from other lands.

Let those who want to stifle the dream of another’s freedom stay far away!

Shepherds look to the stars to know in which pasture they have stopped. Poor humans, we need the moon to guide our steps on the path. Plants drink the sun to grow. And we need the light of our dreams to see the colors of life.

For one week, Atharri will become a summit of dreams of freedom, adorned with a thousand lights and colors, dancing to a thousand voices and melodies, a rich source of creation and delight.

Mizel Hiribarren, Mayor of Itxassou