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By Lapurdi, Naia Etxeberri and Irati Alcantarilla, by Baja Navarra, Ekhi Perrier and Unai Harluxet, and by Zuberoa, Leire Casamajou, will compete tomorrow at the Euskal Herria School Final. Although they belong to different countries, they are all in the same school: At the lyceum Bernat Etxepare de Baiona. Although Alcantarilla has chosen to continue in the bertsos school of Irun, they all walk and walk in the bertsos school of Etxepare, with Aimar Karrika as a professor.

When applying for the current quarry of young bertsolaris like Liceo Etxepare, Karrika says: “Inevitably yes. We open our doors to both public and Christian schools, but most Bertsolarism schools have them in Seaska. Everything is OK. In 99% we work with Seaska students.” However, in Bizkitarte, for example, it has the town’s bertsos school. “Yes, they do. We are making more and more effort to incorporate the bertso eskola into the peoples, but since its meeting point is the lyceum, it is easier for us to go to the spring. They have two options: in the lyceum and outside it in some villages like Azkain, Hendaia, Urruña”.

The bertsolari of Auritz has explained how improvisation works in classes, and when they have reached the school lyceum they have a clearer choice: “Most of them arrive in the Liceo after four or five years in the Bertsos school. So, if you know the step and the step of bertsolarism. They know different sizes and melodies. They've sung verses. It is true that times in schools are difficult years for them, they do not know whether to continue or not to continue. What's more, it's a motivational job. When they arrive at the Lyceum, it makes them a little more serious and we start working in Arabic.”

Karrika has detailed the exercises that are done to work the bertso, with the objective of young people finding their way to sing: “We start with very simple exercises: from giving the four feet, giving the end of the verse, to getting into the trades. To have an interview with the other bertsolari: in the big zortziko, in the small zortziko, by points, alone. And what attitudes they can adopt within that… What kisses they can sing based on attitudes… Identify each one’s verse, what each one likes to do and help pull it out. It’s to see where the blockages can come from and try to liberate them or channel them.”

The professor wants them to work from him and not be too focused: “They believe it quite freely because we ideologically like us. We will give them tools, but for them to depart from their ideas.” Let him come, therefore, giving him time. “We know the process can be longer. We do not structure their heads or their verses, quite the opposite. Then they'll look for the instruments in a way that shapes them. We give them tools throughout the year.”

First championship

The Euskal Herria School Championship is the first place that young people know, but not the first. “It’s not the only one, but it’s true that this is the first big leap. That is why we sometimes find it difficult for everyone to get into that line, as is normal. We take them to the ikastolas to sing and those are the first places, but they are in front of the children.” It is not the same to sing in Sara before a wider audience and more friend than in the whole of Euskal Herria. “Taking into account doubts, concerns, ignorance in 15 years. In the same way, everything is spirit, desire to experience. And within that comes a championship in verse. They will be judged, but they do so with the trust of the partner. It's a competition, but they go with friends, hi-hi ha-ha, but this is a serious thing. There everything unites them, and at the same time, you see very nice jumps at that time, because it leads to a compromise.”

After the victory of sailor Maddi Sarasua in 2012, the txapela of schooling has not returned to Ipar Euskal Herria, and Gipuzkoans and Biscayan have prevailed. However, situations cannot be compared either in the context of language or bertsolarism. Street: “It can be a cultural and historical and quantitative difference, but I don’t think they come much longer. What happens is that maybe they have more internalized other assurances than we do not yet have rooted here. It is inevitable that from Gipuzkoa there is more action, that Bertsolarism is more entrenched, etc., which makes the two who arrive in the plaza have more marked forms”. In this way, the student sees their students full of genius, and the options are open for the big final: “Then anything can happen, because the number of verses is small, and the talent is both in Álava, as in Xilaba, as in Navarra.”

See the generation perfectly. “With a lot of excitement. We've seen them from a very young age, where they've started and how far they've come. We see tremendous evolution for them.” It's to keep out of the Liceo. “It is the issue, the biggest of our shortcomings, that we have to work on, and we are very conscious: At 18, what? There we have to make a great force.” Because next to the bottom they disperse for study purposes, whether it's Bordeaux, Paris or other places. “If they continue until the age of 24 with this work, they can be very able to sing bertsos. The truth is, the biggest effort in this disease is liceo, about two years or so, because before you realize you get into liceo, you're terminal. If you stay there, you can stay quite nice.”

Karrika says they have thought of a Xilaba for teams to do this — in addition to the Hernandorena awards and bertsolaris encounters — so that they can again sing and join their friends to sing bertsos. What was done last year, for the first time, has to be repeated in the autumn.