You are the coordinator of the Bertsozale Elkartea Association of the Basque Country. You didn't know the Association's bowels before. What did he call you when you became interested in the Association?

What surprised me the most was how clean it was that we had to work on that self-organization: transmission, promotion and research. And the role of each was as clear as their union.

The aim of the partnership is to extend Bertsolaris, care for it and guarantee the future, and to do so it works in these three areas. In the transmission it is necessary to recreate the entire ecosystem, not only the bertsolaris, but also the bertsolaris fans, the organizers, the creators of themes -- all to complete the ecosystem, and for that we have to do a job in the transmission. Then we have to do another work in the promotion, in the dissemination of bertsolarism, in the plazas, in the media, and in the third one we have to investigate with the aim of deepening and improving knowledge. Every time it became very clear how to work, tie it all together and form a chain.

And that is also reflected in the countries. In each country, Bertsolaris is living a very different situation, but also the Basque country in general, and the situation of each country is known by each country. On these three axes, each country decides where to influence or where to put more force.

And another great surprise that I received was the involvement of the bertsolaris in the project, often above their personal project. And how that binomial bertsolari and bertsozale is merged into society. In Bertsolarism there are creators and receivers and if you have to take care of Bertsolarism, both play an important role. There's a curious anecdote, which came out under the name of Bertsolari Elkartea, and then went on to be Bertsozale Elkartea, because the need for both is very great.

You have been coordinating the Association for five years. When is it located?

I would answer this question since we are more than ever since we are. When I came, the Association was in a phase of change. The general coordination, which took many years between Koldo Tapia and Jexux Murua, moved to the next generation, but the same change occurred in almost all departments. The association decided to put its own agents in each section and at the same time we entered many new people. There was a change in the organization of the association, more responsibilities were shared, management and operational capacity were expanded...

In that greatness of the partnership you need a lot of time to install yourself, to learn... and I believe that now we are the whole team at a time when we can work from our point of view following those solid foundations that we had already laid. And to give solid leadership, bringing the whole team together.

The association combines in its organization professional and voluntary work. What wealth and difficulties does that have?

If the partnership has reached this point, it has been thanks to voluntary work and, in its day, volunteering has had an enormous weight. Even today, in the decision-making centers, both in the management and in the committees of each department, there are voluntary people. The worker dynamizes and influences, but eventually the decision rests with the volunteers. The greater the partnership, the more difficult it is to guarantee it, the more difficult it is to keep up with the pace and dimension of voluntary people. If this is the issue that concerns us and the one that needs attention, we must maintain the balance. But even today, a lot of work is done on a voluntary basis. At the Xenpelar Documentation Centre, for example, part of the collection is done through the Association’s network (through the Hitzetik Hortzera programme and bertsoa.com four weekly sessions are recorded), but after the bertso eskolas a lot of recordings come, the collection is almost entirely voluntary. Joanito Dorronsoro made a melody, voluntarily cataloguing over 3,000 melodies. In this way, much work is going on, and for the future, that too has to be the basis. That is the essence of the Partnership.

Among workers, the need for volunteering is also highly internalised.

The function of the Xenpelar Documentation Centre, in addition to collecting bertsolarism, is to make everything collected available to society and to encourage its use. Is the treasure used enough?

Xenpelar is another key to the Association, as it made a bet on the success that was made in full. Founded in 1991, the Association made a clear bet, as when the Association ran out of funding, it was decided to keep Xenpelar, and many other things had to work differently. At present it is absolutely necessary for the Association, both for the creation of transmission material, for the promotion of Hitzetik Hortzera and bertsoa.com, and for research.

The work of a Documentation Center consists of three phases: collection, organization/cataloguing and social integration. As has been said, the collection is carried out in a special way, with a very small budget we carry out the collection throughout the network. Five documentalists are currently being catalogued and organized. But really the value is use, we don't pick it up for any purpose of ownership, we're collecting it for society. It's used, people are doing little research, or the bertsolaris themselves take material -- but we want to give a boost to socialization. In 2010 it took a big step, in Xenpelar there is almost the entire catalog available on the internet bdb.bertsozale.com. But it seems to us that Xenpelar is not being used enough and we have a lot of work to socialize. We need to take a step.

Has Bertsolarism been sufficiently investigated? Will the Mintzola Foundation work together?

The third foot in the partnership, that of research, has always been more limited, as the resources that research requires are very varied; it needs researchers, adequate physical and technical resources, funding... We wanted to organize it through Mintzola and the foundation was established in 2008. The Mintzola project started from the need for an institute of bertsolarism and a headquarters for the Association and the DZ Xenpelar. But from the administration we were asked to take a step further, towards orality. Joxerra Gartzia developed the project with the base of being a dynamic observatory of traditions to meet oral needs. But we've had two problems in Mintzola: On the one hand, the different interpretations of the project and on the other, the structure given to it.

Orality was put at the center, but orality is a broad world. It can come from any point, and any point that comes in is interesting. On the basis of the Gartzia report, different interpretations have been made and, from our point of view, we need to focus more on it. Otherwise, everything has room, and that has happened, very interesting projects have been launched, which are working very well, but in our opinion, this was not the place, but there were other institutions that had to go to those institutions to respond to those needs and projects.

What we have done in the partnership has been to return from the Gartzia report, and at HUHEZI we have taken the “basis for guiding the strategy of Euskal Kulturgintza”, and we have turned the Mintzola project one more step back. We have focused the project on oral cultural creation. We think that this is where Mintzola has to focus and within that it has to be a research center of Bertsolarism to develop the research project of the Association, and we also propose to be a meeting point between different oral cultural expressions, to transmit experiences, know each other, create projects together and help other genders in the self-organization. Although everyone has to make their way out of Mintzola. In the field of Basque culture and culture, a great contribution can be made through the study of oral cultural creation.

Mintzola was structured into a foundation, but when appointing the employers, the economic criteria had more weight than the project itself, generating an imbalance that can significantly influence the proyecto.Lo we value everything in money in this country and in the creation of these structures. And how is a cultural project economically valued? How is the cultural project and the social network that the association places quantified?

As has been said, the Foundation has gathered different elements needed for research, resources (DFG, Kutxa, Basque Government), headquarters (Villabona City Hall), researchers (UPV/EHU) and project and cultural heritage (EHBE, with the XDZ documentation centre).

If the Mintzola Foundation is based on a cultural project, the board should also be constituted from that perspective. That is why we are also trying to turn the structure of Mintzola back and demand the leadership of the project.

The Bertso eskolas are autonomous, but how does their work relate to Bertsozale Elkartea?

Basically, a broadcast project is the whole project of the Bertsozale Elkartea Association, as it is a question of delaying bertsolarism. And the key piece, I would say, is bertsos classes. At the same time, however, we are convinced that the Bertso Eskolas must be as independent as possible. That's the goal, to create as many bertsolaris schools as possible, because the same ecosystem creates it. In this bertsolaris school there will be a bertsolari that is perhaps very good and will do it by session, others will enjoy bertsolaris, and they will organize the performances in that town, the themes will emerge, the judges,... in the village where the bertso eskolas are guaranteed the movement.

It is clear that the Bertso eskolas are autonomous, but in some villages that did not exist they have been created by the Association itself, and there is much work in common with the Bertso eskolas: The association is creating material for the Bertso Eskolas, and the association would not carry out its projects without the help of the Bertso Eskolas.