“Song of the Basque II – The Legacy Continues”. Basque culture shines in the Far West (video)

This article was translated by John R. Bopp

This year is the hundredth anniversary of a key cultural event in Idaho, the Boise Music Week, which was created in 1919 by a soldier returning from World War I (find out more about him here).

In 1949, its thirtieth year, a group made up of the members of the Basque Community in Idaho put on a show to display Basque culture and traditions, which they called the “Song of the Basque“.

From that event, which was a “debut” of the traditions of the Basque community out west, we still have some photos and recordings which have been shared by The Basque Museum and Cultural Center in Boise.

This year is the festival’s centenary, and it included a show performed by the cultural and familial heirs of the Basques who, in 1949, participated in that great representation of our popular culture in the United States.  Seventy years later, the Basque community in Idaho is still going strong, well-connected to their roots, with enough verve to put on such an amazing show as the one we can see here.

Here we can find the video-report put together by Katherine Jones for the Idaho Statesman, including information about the Boise Music Week itself, and a video from KTVB, which offers us the whole show.

We never tire of repeating it.  The Basques all around the world, separated from their homeland by need or exile, every day, offer us lessons that we need to take to heart.  The love for our culture, the respect for our roots, the commitment with our Nation’s heritage, is passed down from parents to children far and wide across the world.

From Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon to New Caledonia, from New Orleans to Patagonia, from Patagonia to Boise, from Buenos Aires to… from the institutions who can date their history by centuries, like the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Arantzazu in Lima, to those groups of young Basques who get together in Shanghai, or Berlin, or Tokyo, or any other city that this globalized world takes them to, they are all teaching us a lesson we need to learn.  Lessons taught by the best must be taken to heart.

Idaho Statesman – 30/4/2019 – USA

The Tradition Continues!

Seventy years ago Boise Music Week invited the Basque community to stage its first-ever, formal, public music and dance performance entitled, “Song of the Basque.”

(Follow) (Automatic Translation)

KTVB – 5/2019 – USA

Watch Treasure Valley dancers perform the Song Of The Basque II at the Morrison Center

Last Updated on Dec 20, 2020 by About Basque Country