Published in DEIA, Jan. 20, 2011

“CAPTURING the free with what’s in chains”. That is how Rodríguez de la Fuente defined, in sublime way, one of his biggest passions, the art of falconry. Such art has been declared at the end of the last year by UNESCO as Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Humanity, a motion of twelve countries: United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Syria, Mongolia, Czech Republic, Spain, Slovakia, Morocco, France, Belgium, Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Although it is not acquainted with certainty, it is believed that falconry begins its art more than 4,000 years ago, in the Asiatic steppes, by the pure human observation of the animal’s behavior. Something similar that happen with the wolf, although, however, the techniques of taming of the mammals and the birds are diametrically the opposite. As well as UNESCO says, “Falconry is one of the most ancient relations between men and birds, adapting traditional activity that uses brats to capture preys in her natural habitant”. Is the result and accurate reflection of the human’s restlessness to avail oneself from his surroundings for its survival, being in the Middle Ages when this art enjoyed a bigger plethora. And much has developed from its beginnings to a material level, techniques of training or technologically that falconry is, nowadays, one of the most fascinating arts that God forbid the man had known.

Tells the legend that little Temujin ( 1162-1227 ), in plain desert along with his brother, attended the capture of a jungle fowl by a goshawk and Temujin came up with the idea of making use of his own hair to fill the bird’s leg with loops. They hid and when the rapacious return he got stuck in one of them. The young brothers already had the perfect weapon to subsist.

We have to leave the evident and give things a second thought. That way success is guaranteed, even if you have to conquer the largest empire of all times. We only have to conquer the fear of one and dare.

Share on Facebook

KEPA Junkera is a great ambassador for the Basque country, and his concerts rarely disappoint. His trikitixa music, played on a variety of diatonic accordions, is accompanied by his inspiring band which includes the attractive sound of the txalaparta, a wooden xylophone-like instrument struck by a duo armed with rounded sticks.

Junkera often has a surprise up his sleeve and this time it was Leioa Kantika Korala, 15 young women led by Basilio Astulez. Their vocal harmonies were enhanced by choreographed moves whose sensual fluidity, visually enhanced by the sway of their multicoloured silken harem pants, added a captivating visual dimension.

However, having transformed the music of Basque mountain shepherds into something alluringly feel-good, Junkera makes no attempt to tell us what we’re listening to. It was a tad frustrating to have a sequence of a dozen songs sung in Europe’s most esoteric language with no explanation from the stage as to their subject and no good old-fashioned programme to inform us.

These imaginative settings of ancient ballads of the Bay of Biscay, collected by improvising bertsolari poet Xabier Amuriza, use beautiful melodies and in novel style several involve recorded fragments of Mongolian throat-singing. While the meaning remains a mystery, the overall effect was joyfully bucolic, as the women’s clear, light voices wove glittering tapestries of sound. Crowned by Junkera’s rapid-fire playing and his band’s witty use of stamping tubes and an electrified cow’s horn, this was a uplifting night defined by intriguing innovation.

Share on Facebook

Published in DEIA, Jan. 13, 2010

A person, after one of my concerts, approached me and told me: “You do Biodanza, Kepa”. I had already listened to the term before but I really didn’t know of what we were talking. And he ended: “Not only that you express yourself by means of the bellows: You transmit with your motions, with your gaze, you live it… that is Biodanza, and I practice it”. When saying good-bye, the curious bug stung me. Biodanza.

Carrying out an investigation, I have come to the conclusion that it is the physical representation, by means of the dance, of what music can produce in a human being, becoming converted both in vehicle and tool to express and to be closer to his inner self.

All this begins from the hand of Dr. Rolando Toro, Psychology’s professor of Art and Expression, that at the beginning of 70´s he began to use this system at the mental hospital of Santiago of Chile. He observed that the psychiatric sick persons of the hospital had nothing; they had taken everything, love, friendship, joy…  They were forgotten people. Then he came up with the idea of throwing a party and he put slow music discovering that on the following day deliriums increased exceedingly. When making again another experiment with more rhythmical music, samba and even jazz, he saw that deliriums descended and in some cases they disappeared. But the most amazing was the euphoria and the well-being that the sick persons transmitted. So shortly then the pupils of medicine, the doctors and the nurses were the ones that requested Dr. Rolando’s services. This came to be Biodanza.

Everyday we lived more rapidly, losing uncountable things by the way. Let’s permit that the rhythm of music set the time for us and let’s try to stop our frantic races and, for a minute, let’s feel and be carried away. We will evolve in so many levels and we will feel the joy of the music. The one that I experience every time I manage to flow with her, the one that I perceive in the gazes of a great many people that listens to us, the one I wish All that who reads these lines…

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

The choirs of Bermeo and Leioa Kantika will also perform in tonight´s concert in favor of the town´s ikastola.

Published in DEIA by Ander Egiluz Beramendi

January 15, 2010

Bilbao. The Ikastola Eleizalde of Bermeo was left out of a concert by Kepa Junkera at the Ibiladi; Not for lack of interest of the trikitilari of Rekalde, but because his agenda was making him travel every day to one outermost point of the orb, in the period in which he found himself absorbed in the finalization of the macro project Etxea, Kalea, Herria. However, such and as the persons in charge of the ikastola explained, he promised to attend the fishing locality with an important project. The word of an artist or simply, Junkera’s word. This very day, in the evening doorstep, at 20:00 o’clock Junkera and a long cast of collaborators will give the beginning tour of BetiBizi. A tour that will allow listening to euskaldunes´sounds no more than less in the prestigious Glasglow Celtic Connections among other destinies.

“It will be a special, different concert”, tell us yesterday the bertsolari and writer Xabier Amuriza, the evening before the spectacle in which he will also participate. And, it is that, all the lyrics sung in the record BetiBizi are ancient ballads compiled in the course of the years by the “etxanotarra”. An arduous job that they added on to them to make suitable those verses to “sounds and melodies fixed for dance”, that Amuriza explained to us.

It´s been a long time that Amuriza did not present himself in front of such a massive public, since the bertsosaios in which he shows up often are, principally, in less repercussion’s squares. “But this is our project and I want to be there,” saying. The Frontón Artza, with its 890 localities – still have available seats and the ticket offices of the enclosure will open at 18,30 o’clock – -, it will be the stage of a spectacle that will have Kepa Junkera and his habitual band, the juvenile chorus Leioa Kantika Korala,  in charge of recording the voices of the record and with great experience in foreign countries, the Coral of Bermeo and Xabier Amuriza, that he will delight with bertsos, will present the act and  will join togther the corals in the two last songs of the concert . “Being a concert in favor of the ikastola of Bermeo it is totally understanding that the coral of the locality wants to participate”, Amuriza tells us.  To  what he added on , “and for that, at the end of the concert we will sing several songs typical of Bermeo” And those melodies most probable are Joxe Miguelen batela and Egia da, egia da, both recovered by the proper Junkera in his habitual repertoire. Although Gaztaina koloreko, belonging to the album and in which Amuriza puts voice, has a good chance.

Innovative spectacle Even Though it is true that the concert will focus on the presentation of BetiBizi, such and as Amuriza advanced, the direct will count with five moments: Two of them in which Kepa and his band will warm up the Artza’s environment; Other ones two with more harmonious, by the hand of Leioa Kantika Korala, directed, as it is habitual, for Basilio Astulez-, and with Junkera as a solo performer.  Ending with a strong finale in which all the all-comers of the concert will sing the classical melodies “bermeanas”.

“I am very excited – Amuriza sincerely talking-; the ballads sung by the young girls and with the style of Kepa, in a place like Bermeo “.  A beginning of a stylish tour and with a terrific ending.

Share on Facebook

Published in DEIA, Jan. 6, 2011

THIS year that is just about to end and in which I have lived intense moments has also meant discovery in many different levels. Finding a place, deepening and enclosure discovering different aspects of our surroundings, is something that when you share it with somebody that knows how to transmit you its passion it is a true gift.

They already had commented to me about the enormous variety and wealth in caves and deep fissures in Urdaibai, more then 200, and invited by some very special friends: Alberto Palomera, Jaime Orueta, Edu Gordo, that you will all remember in being the person that performs the miracle of the fire in the video of HERRIA and Rober Garay prepared to enter into one of them to live that experience. The cave was Saint Peter of Busturia, in the neighborhood of Axpe.

The first thing was in getting dressed and preparing the all equipment that is like being a ritual charged with emotion. After that we began our adventure not without any difficulties, because the truth is, the places we walked around were pretty demanding in physical levels. Each corner that I discovered was more incredible than the previous one. The colors, the shapes, odors and sounds, there were so many things that I was afraid of not being able to keep memory of everything. We walked for 1-kilometer around the surroundings and you can’t imagine the quantity of water that circulates through those spots and the so fraught beauty of the contrasts existing there. Besides we carry out a fantastic experience, we were going accompanied, as it couldn’t be different, by several instruments to perform inside the cave and to see what sensations produced us. I liked the idea of being able to relive what the caveman experienced with the different sounds that he listened to in his surroundings. His ear was almost virgin and the echoes and the sound’s intensity of the caves had to create a true fascination in them.

Alberto, Jaime Edu and Rober are still able to become astonished with all what surrounds them without having to look for far away places and exotic, enjoying things than many other ones have already forgotten. Life is a succession of contrasts like these four good friends whom I dedicate this column. The truth is …you are very special!!!

www.kepajunkera.com

Share on Facebook

Published in DEIA, Dec. 30, 2010

Many times, what seems to us an ancestral ritual result to be a story that has nothing to do with what we believed, and what seem to be for many, ignorance, passions me, which converts the past into a true mystery to discover.

Continuing with this thought I would like to highlight the discovery made by a group of scientists a very special hominid’s cadaver in Denisov, south of Siberia, Russia. Thanks to an exhaustive DNA analysis they can firm that this specie, that lived more than 30,000 years ago, totally unknown for us. As of today it was thought that there were only two types of hominids: The Neanderthal and the modern humans. But thanks to this discovery it has been demonstrated that, at least, they were three. They have named Denisova to this new sort of hominid. The Denisova is a far lost cousin of the former Neanderthal, revolutionizing all the theories on our origin as species. Tomás Marques Bonet, a Spanish scientist that has taken part in this project, affirms: “Till last year it was said that the modern humans got to Europe and exterminated the Neanderthals, from now on there will be a change in the way of understanding the human evolution.”

An example that proves that we can never take anything for known and that only the human stupidity can think that we already know everything, because there are always things to discover.  Who knows if in the future there will be unforgotten main characters that neither could we imagine the transcendence that they had in history? Right now we are living some celebrations that in reality come from pagan rituals where the solstice of winter and the victory of the light over darkness were celebrated. As you see, even what we think is real can keep a mystery turning our lives into something fascinating, embellished by the unknown. I hope that this 2011 many of our dreams can be reached within our hands. The rest belongs to us, a mystery. Urte berrion!!!

www.kepajunkera.com

Photograph EFE

Share on Facebook