History of the Basque Country General Championship

You will be accompanied throughout this site by improvisers. During your visit: click on their photos to discover what they have to say.

"After the war, when Ernandorena began to look for improvisers locally, he contacted me. He took me to the championship he had organised in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

I went with Iriarte and Zubikoa, from Banka, but I have to admit that I didn’t know any of the others there.

It was also on this occasion that I met our dear Mattin, Etxahun and the late Errexil.

That day in Saint-Jean-de-Luz was very important for me, and I’m not ashamed to say that it was thanks to Ernandorena that the Basque Country discovered us, Mattin and myself. What’s more, it’s with him that we went to Paris".

"The first competition I took part in was the Gipuzkoa inter-school championship. I was 8 years old.

We sung there because there was no-one to else to represent the Northern Basque Country, that’s why we set up a group in Hendaye. There were three of us: Sustrai Colina, my sister and myself. We sang in front of an audience in Beasain.

We didn’t know what stage fright was at that time. And if we were successful, it was because it was an amusing situation: there we were, three small children singing with 14 year olds  …

The following year, when I was 9, we sang again and we got as far as the final. That was in Donostia.

I don’t think we realised what we were doing. We moved up a rung and we competed with the adults"

"I began to improvise at the age of 8, and when I was 12 I gave it up before taking it up again when I was 15 in Hendaye. A new group had been formed, with a new teacher, and we also started going to Oiartzun.

Now that’s where we have our group and we go there regularly. We’ve always had a really good group and that’s the only way to develop an improvisation school. Improvisation is a pretext.

It’s not an essential part of life, so if you haven’t got a group which motivates you, it’s easy to give up. I can’t remember our first public performance, but I don’t have a bad memory of it, it didn’t traumatise me and that’s very important. When you’ve suffered doing something, you don’t want to continue. Nowadays, more than fright, I feel the adrenalin. And adrenalin is necessary. Too much relaxation isn’t good for improvisation. Your reflexes let you down and, just like being over nervous is bad, if you’re too relaxed you just freeze up.

So nerves are a good thing before starting until you face the audience. I like that that vertigo. It’s an intense moment"

"I remember the first time I performed in front of an audience. I was eleven years old, it was in Arrasate, in the final of the Basque Country inter-school championship.

I went up on to the stage wearing shorts … I was nervous, but, I didn’t feel any pressure at all. For me, improvisation has always been a game and I’ve never really apprehended it. I was more ashamed afterwards when the verses I’d improvised were read out!

It was a wonderful experience which could actually have been quite traumatising: at the age of eleven to suddenly find yourself in front of an audience, having to improvise verses, when that’s something you’ve never done before, in a championship, and being judged, also knowing that it’s all going to be published in the press … But in the end, the audience was very generous. Perhaps too generous. Until that time they’d always seen me as a girl, and a little girl at that, and that was enough for them. I must admit that, on the one hand, it suits me for them not to be too critical, but on the other hand, it’d be better if everyone was judged in the same way.

I won several prizes: in the inter-school championships, in the Northern Basque Country the Xenpelar prize and in September 2004 the Lizardi prize. The only one I’m really proud of is the last one. When I won it I said to myself: you really deserve this one!. It’s the first time I’ve ever really accepted winning an award"

"I remember the first time I improvised. I don’t know when it was, but I had to greet Sustrai Colina.

We were very young and they had an improvisation session. Although we had prepared beforehand, I was really frightened.

There were three friends with me, and they also had to do the same thing with the other improvisers present, and that was very difficult. Luckily you get used to it and eventually you take great pleasure in it.

Every year we take part in the inter-school championship reserved for the under 18’s. An eliminatory round was held in the Northern Basque Country and two or three of us made it into the final.

I have taken part regularly and it’s never easy"