Autumn kicks off with a busy calendar of activities at the Etxepare Basque Institute

Etxepare Basque Institute is gearing up after summer with a flurry of activity. In autumn we’ll set our sights on international festivals and fairs, using our various networks to promote Euskera and Basque culture abroad. The Institute will also provide support and financial aid to enable numerous artists, companies and initiatives to present their work at these events. The new academic year is also the time to set in motion several initiatives overseen by Etxepare in collaboration with universities around the globe, including Basque language and culture programmes, university chairs and educational courses.

Etxepare Basque Institute is gearing up after summer with a flurry of activity. In autumn we’ll set our sights on international festivals and fairs, using our various networks to promote Euskera and Basque culture abroad. The Institute will also provide support and financial aid to enable numerous artists, companies and initiatives to present their work at these events. The new academic year is also the time to set in motion several initiatives overseen by Etxepare in collaboration with universities around the globe, including Basque language and culture programmes, university chairs and educational courses.

Artistic disciplines at countless international events

As far as literature is concerned, Basque authors have been and will be at several important events this autumn. Writer Leire Bilbao visited the Hay Festival Querétaro from September 5 to 8; from September 13 to 15, illustrator Asisko Urmeneta was a guest at the Brussels Comic Strip Festival. Poet Luis Garde will visit the Transpoesie festival organized by EUNIC on September 26, and writer Ana Malagón has been invited to the Wroclaw Short Story Festival at the beginning of October. As for the Americas, writer Anjel Lertxundi will be visiting the Miami Book Fair, and writer and translator Eider Rodríguez will be at FIL Guadalajara. Last but not least, bertsolari Amets Arzallus will perform his improvised poetry in Edinburgh on October 17 as part of the Scotland Goes Basque cultural project, organized in Scotland by the Etxepare Basque Institute. Arzallus will be take the stage after a screening of the documentary Pafos – Fronteras Compartidas (Paphos - Shared Borders), featured in the Europa Transit series.

Basque cinema and audiovisuals will also play a leading role in various international forums. In September, the Uruguayan film archive, Cinemateca Uruguaya, hosted a series of Basque films; and Fermín Muguruza’s film Black is Beltza was shown at the Viña del Mar Film Festival in Chile. At the end of September, Basque cinema will visit the UK as part of the London Spanish Film Festival’s Basque Window. In October, Basque television and digital content will be on show at the MIPCOM fair in Cannes. And in November, the film Dantza will be shown at the Euskal Etxeak Basque centres in Argentina, accompanied by director Telmo Esnal and lead actor Gari Otamendi; New York will host another Basque cinema series, and at the end of the month, Animasivo, Mexico City´s contemporary animation festival, will host Black is Beltza and animation filmmaker Begoña Vicario.

Basque music will also leave its mark in other parts of the world. On September 14 and 16 Iñaki Salvador and his band paid homage to the beloved musician Mikel Laboa with the show Laboa Jaz, at the Kanazawa Jazz Street Festival in Japan; and at the Mercat de Música Viva of Vic, the group Lumi gave a performance on September 19. The EH Sona Festival is currently underway in Barcelona, kicking off on September 21 with a performance by Egurra eta Kitto; for two months, EH Sona will fill Barcelona´s halls with live Basque music. At the end of October, the Basque group Korrontzi will be at the WOMEX folk music festival in the Finnish city of Tampere; and in November, Amorante will be the Basque guest performer at the Monkey Week festival held in Seville. Finally, as part of the Europa Transit series of the Scotland Goes Basque programme, musician Mursego will be in Glasgow on October 20 to give a concert after the screening of the documentary she appears in, Sarajevo - Sounds of Resilience.

The roster would not be complete without a couple of outstanding events in the area of stage and performance arts. The companies Hortzmuga and LaRutan and artists Itsaso Iribarren and Germán de la Riva performed their theatre and dance shows at the Fira Tàrrega. And the duo Sra. Polaroiska will be visiting Edinburgh in October with their show Lur Away and will present the release of another documentary within the Europa Transit series: Plovdiv - Street Dancers.

Promoting Basque culture and language at universities

The 35 Basque language and culture programmes sponsored by Extepare have started up at university campuses around the world. In addition to regular classroom hours, the readers generally organize extracurricular activities that help students gain a deeper understanding of Basque culture. Some readers have already started working on their projects.

Every autumn the Institute joins forces with the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) to provide a special training course for anyone interested in becoming a reader abroad. The deadline for registering for this year´s course, held in Vitoria-Gasteiz, is October 1.

The Institute has also created eight chairs in Basque studies at prestigious universities abroad, three of which will be active during the autumn months: the Bernardo Atxaga Chair at CUNY University in New York, the William Douglas Chair at Massachusetts-Amherst University and the Jon Bilbao Chair at the University of Nevada-Reno. In addition, the Etxepare Basque Institute will launch a new chair this year at the University of Buenos Aires, after signing an agreement with CONICET (Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council). The name of the new chair will be Amale Artetxe, set to be inaugurated in Buenos Aires on October 31.