lunes, 21 de septiembre de 2009

Oinkari Dancers Aniversary

Oinkari Basque Dancers to celebrate golden anniversary

The group that began with 7 dancers plans a year of anniversary observances.

BY TIM WOODWARD - twoodward@idahostatesman.com

Published: 03/29/09


Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman
Toni Murelaga Achabal, Diana Urresti Sabala, Delphina Urresti (front row), Simon Achabal and Al Erquiaga (back row) helped found the Basque Oinkari Dancers. Current and former dancers are about to kick off more than a year of celebrating their 50th anniversary.

WERE YOU AN OINKARI DANCER?

If you were and would like to participate in the group's anniversary observances, contact Al Erquiaga at 853-0678.

You can't call yourself a true Boisean if you've never seen the Oinkari Basque Dancers. They're part of our heritage, like Music Week or tubing the Boise River.

But do you know when and how they started?

Probably not. They're so much a part of the local scene that they seem to have always been here.

The group began after seven Boise Basques in their early 20s visited Spain and learned some Basque songs and dances. They thought the dances would be a fleeting diversion.

Nearly half a century later, Idaho Basques are planning more than a year of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of that trip and what it started. What began with seven 20-somethings has become a tradition that has included more than 800 dancers performing at venues from local parks to the rotunda of the U.S. Senate.

"They've represented Idaho nationally and internationally," Basque Museum and Cultural Center Director Patty Miller said. "And they've been great preservers of our culture. When the visitors' bureau or the tourism department want to point something out about Boise culture, there's nothing more visible than the Basque dancers."

The seven who started it all - Al Erquiaga, Delphina and Diana Urresti, Toni Murelaga, Simon Achabal, Clarine Anchustegui and Bea Solosabal - spent the summer of 1960 in Europe. While visiting the Basque country, they met a group of dancers who called themselves the Oinkaris, which loosely means dancing feet.

"They taught us two dances to take home," Boisean Toni Achabal said. (Her last name being the same as that of another member of the original seven isn't a coincidence. She and her husband, Simon, were the first of many Oinkari dancers to be married.)

"We had the idea of starting a group in Boise," she said, "but we never dreamed what it would become. We thought it would be here today and gone tomorrow."

When the Boiseans visited Spain, dictator Francisco Franco was ruthlessly suppressing Basque culture. Basques couldn't fly their flag, speak their language or write down their music. The novice dancers had to try to remember the songs until they returned to Boise.

"We got together with Jimmy (local accordion legend Jimmy Jausoro) right away because we didn't know how long the songs would stay in our heads," Achabal said. "He wrote down what we could remember. We made our own costumes and started practicing. It wasn't authentic, but it was as authentic as we could make it."

It was authentic enough that their first performance for Boise's Basque community in December 1960 was a hit.

"We were so nervous we didn't know if we were coming or going, but we wowed them," Achabal said.

The performances will continue with more than a year of anniversary observances, beginning with the St. Ignatius picnic Aug. 1-2 (the current Oinkari dancers will perform), culminating with Jaialdi in July of 2010 and ending with a dinner dance in December of 2010 - 50 years after the first group's first performance.

"We're going to try to get all the alumni to dance at one time at Jaialdi," Erquiaga said. "That will be over 700 people."

Though two of the original dancers now live out of state, all seven - now in their 70s - plan to join in the festivities.

"Hopefully we'll rehearse first," Erquiaga said. "Then we'll stagger through it."

That's a greater accomplishment than it might seem.

The Oinkari group that taught them their first dances in Spain? It disbanded decades ago.

Tim Woodward: 377-6409


From Idaho Stateman

sábado, 5 de septiembre de 2009

El primer grupo de dantzaris de Idaho




El primer grupo de bailes del estado de Idaho nació en Emmett, una pequeña localidad del condado de Gem que, en 1940, tenía poco más de 3000 habitantes, de estos, casi el 10 por ciento eran vascos o de origen vasco. Aquí vivía Cipri Barroetabeña, natural de Markina, junto a su esposa Julia Lizundia, con quien se había casado en 1922. Cipri había trabajado en una serrería en Oregon y como pastor en Oregon y Idaho.
A finales de 1939, comenzaron a sentar las bases de lo que sería el primer grupo de danzas del estado de Idaho. Para su puesta en marcha, contó con la ayuda de Jon Bilbao, subdelegado del Gobierno vasco en Boise (que, sin embargo, residía en Emmett) y de José Villanueva. Al grupo fundacional se sumó la lekeitiarra Lucy Aboitiz, una buena dantzari que había trabajado durante un tiempo en el hotel de su tío “Zapatero” Aguirre en Boise.
Mientras que los Barroetabeña y Lucy se encargaron de ensañar la jota y la “porrusalda”, Jon Bilbao, que tambien era un consumado dantzari (había formado parte del cuadro de Juventud Vasca de Algorta), se encargó de enseñar la espadantza y el aurresku “bizkaino” (aunque contaba que algunos pastores de Idaho lo ejecutaba con singular maestría) Decía Jon que, en aquel aurresku, el dantzari se movía más porque hubo un tiempo en que se llevaban cascabeles y, claro, había que hacerlos sonar.
Había que buscar un txistulari. De esto se encargó José Villanueva. Por fin, localizó a Ambrosio Aparicio, un pastor que trabajaba para John Archabal. La cosa no era facil. Para entonces, había comenzado una campaña contra Jon Bilbao (a quien algunos acusaban de “agente comunista”). Zenón Izaguirre, yerno y capataz de Archabal puso todo tipo de dificultades, aunque, al final, cedió.
El grupo quedó formado, finalmente, ocho niñas y nueve niños (dos de estos no eran vascos). Hicieron varias actuaciones y participaron en la Idaho State Fair de 1940, desfilando en una carroza. Aquel año, tras la ocupación nazi de Francia, cerró sus puertas la Subdelegación del Gobierno Vasco de Boise y Jon Bilbao se fue a la Universidad de Bwerkeley (donde, por cierto, formó un grupo de espatadantzaris. El grupo de Emmett siguió activo hasta diciembre de 1941. Habría de pasar cinco años para que Juanita Hormaetxea comenzase comenzase con sus clases de Baile.