|
INTRODUCTION
2. Principal strategy in the construction of the improvised bertso 3. The soul of bertsolaritza-improvised oral confrontation 3.1. General strategic possibilities in improvised oral confrontation 3.2. Practical example-2: "The worker and the housewife" 3.3. Practical example-3: "The debate about wind farms" 3.4. Improvised oral confrontation without an imposed theme |
3 The
soul of bertsolaritza - improvised oral confrontation In improvised
oral confrontations, one bertsolari faces another and they weave a performance
of a greater or lesser number of bertsos between the two of them. It might
be that the improvisers have no prompter of themes as such, so the two
have to generate the discourse, taking into account the circumstances
of the place where they are performing, the day, the audience, the characteristics
of each bertsolari, and so on. Or it is possible that a prompter of themes
imposes a role for each, in which case each will have to find the optimum
arguments to defend her/his characterisation at the same time as attacking
the “opponent”. In the improvised
oral confrontation format, the above-described principal strategy is not
varied at all: the improviser thinks up her/his argument, keeps it in
mind for the end and starts singing from the beginning. Thus, the construction
of the bertso is carried out in a manner identical to that when the bertsolari
sings alone. But in improvised
oral confrontation, the skilful management of the available time for the
improvisation plays a primordial role. When singing solo, the improviser
thinks up the end-piece in the least number of seconds possible and then
starts to sing. And once a bertso is sung, (s)he immediately does the
same: think up the end and start to sing. And so on, successively. Moreover
the argumental thread of the discourse is uniquely that of the solo bertsolari,
obliging the artist to be that much coherent in what is sung and what
is going to be sung. Improvised
oral confrontation, however, is a thing of two people and, as such, both
improvisers singing alternatively, we have two variables which, up to
now, have not been considered: • The arguments
of the rival In improvised
oral confrontation, the improviser has to respond to what the rival has
said. This is quite obvious. An improviser who does not respond to a well-constructed
argument of a rival is not defending the role taken on or the imposed
character well. However, it is not enough just to defend oneself: at the
same time, one has to go on the attack. And there is a sufficient number
of seconds to prepare for this, thinking up the response when it is the
rival’s turn to sing their bertso. We have written
“thinking up” and this is the on-the-spot reality. Wasting precious
seconds not thinking at all is not a good strategy but, neither is it
a good strategy to devise an argument while listening and assimilating
the rival’s bertso, and pertinently respond with what may have been
prepared seconds before, independently of the content of the rival’s
bertso! In many cases, a halfway formula is adopted, with a response to
the opponent and adding the argument thought up while the rival sings.
|