The Lasarte-Oriano Aiora Zulaika uses the words “artisan of irrigation” to define her mission. He wants to offer children a delightful space to laugh, both on and off the stage, with rebellion and transformative intentions. Almost three decades have passed since he first embodied Pirritx and in these years he has created an area within the clown where he feels comfortable. He tells us with a smile that in these years he has never felt alone, that he has had a great care team around him and that they have received a lot of love from the audience, both children and adults. Zulaika is clear that Pirritx, Failx and Marimotots come from the village and belong to the village.

Both Pirritx and Zulaika are music and Basque, transmitters of Basque songs, poems and mouth-knots. They owe everything to the Basque language and want to share with everyone who is with them a warm breath of air that makes them feel Basque.

When you took the stage, Pyrrich had already been there for a few years. How was that process when you started to incarnate the clown?

By the time I joined the clown group, it was four or five years ago that there was a Pirritx. I was invited to the group, I started to make loose characters and once I got into Pyrrich’s flesh, at first I tried to imitate the other with inertia, but we had a very different clown than the previous Pyrrich, Ainhoa Beristain, and I. It was a clown with a lot of dynamism and movement, and I was so different physically and physically that I was more subtle, in a way, I flirted less, in every way. I loved his Pirritx, but I realized it wasn't my clown. I struggled to find an area where I would feel comfortable, where I could get the best out of myself and feel comfortable. The theatrical beginnings were in the youth center of Lasarte-Oria, Merche Rodríguez, Marimotots, was one of my teachers or guides. In the group there was also Bea Egizabal. The elaboration of one’s own clown is a continuous search process.

You also created the voice of Pirrich. How do you feel when you speak or sing these two voices?

Pirrich's voice gives me magic, a superpower. Pirritx is a reference for children. I’m also a music teacher and often students ask me to talk or sing like Pirritx and it’s nice to see how their faces change. It's a voice that I'm very comfortable with, it's also learned. At Christmas, for example, I sang with Izaro from the voice of Pirrich in the Kursaal, but dressed as Aiora, because I was in the audience with my relatives. It was a very emotional moment. The public saw Pirritx, even though it was Aiora. I’ve always been a singer, I like to sing, take the guitar, and play the whistle. In addition, in education it seems to me that we sing little, one of my tasks is in education the work of transmitting Basque songs, poems and vocal knots, from emotions. I’ve been lucky: my grandmothers and my parents sang to me and put Basque songs on a magnetophone... but not everyone has that luck and in today’s multicultural society, I think that this transmission that we give them by song is very important. Singing when you are in pain, when you are sick, when you are angry, when you have a need is very important. Also to have fun and/or to proclaim. This is what I'm trying to do.

“One of my tasks in education is the transmission of Basque songs, poems and vocal knots, from emotions”

 

On the stage you can say that Pirritx is music.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But it is true that even when Bankruptcy sings, no one remains indifferent. And even when Marimo sings, I imagine with my eyes closed a young girl singing up to the tree. We have always been friends of imperfection and we have proclaimed that, even nature is sometimes not perfect in our eyes, we are not even people. I also tell students that it’s not wrong to draw or sing. Everyone has to find their own inner singer or painter, where one is comfortable. We’re very internalized that if we don’t do things one way, we’re not doing it right, and that’s not the case.

Virginia Imaz, a humorist, says that women have not educated us to be “ridiculous.” It’s not the same as, for example, Bankruptcy throwing the fart on the stage or Pyrrich or Marimotots doing it. How have you been reviewing and building the roles of each clown?

Just with the idea of the fart we created a song with a poem by Joxean Ormazabal. We said the following: “Okay, all right, Bankruptcy is going to throw the punch, but so are Pyrrich and Marimo. Everyone has their own hair.” Everyone makes humor from within and the genre is there as well. Many situations are different from being a woman and you can make a different sense of humor from that look. On the outside, people have experienced humor differently, whether it’s made by men or women. The woman has always had a strong connection with the humor, because she has suffered a lot, and the humor is a very good balsamo, but the woman has made the humor among women. I imagine the Ondarruko raiders among themselves, or the Conserbera workers laughing... in those areas where the women have gathered, they have laughed a lot, but less in the square. One of the ones who has opened the way in our country has been Virginia Imaz, who has followed a beautiful path and to whom we have joined others, more thoughtful or spontaneous.

“Women have always had a strong connection with humor, but it is the woman who has made humor among women”

 

In the interview that was made to you in the BTN program of the magazine Luz, you mentioned that in the Basque Country we have a great culture of clowns. What do you think this country has to do with humor?

The Basques have a reputation for being serious, but we have an incredible tradition in the clowning industry. There are many Basque clowns and we have had contact with almost all of them. Yesterday I made a list of those I didn't mention to forgive me: Clams, Mirri and Chiribiton; Kakax, Kokox and Kirriki; Gari, Montxo and Joselontxo; Korri, Salto and Brinko; Potxin and Patxin; Tomax; Chorronpio, Pantxi and Pantxo; Kiki, Koko, Moko and Flax; Takolo; Rutx; Txpoxpox, Poxpox, Pollo and Pollo; Isabel Roda, Pollo and Pollo; more. Looking at the list, I see that each group complements each other, that together we form a very beautiful universe. The point of departure and arrival of Pirritx, Failx and Marimotos has been to make the Basque Country Euskal Irri, the world of the image of a joyful people or to expand it. Some clowning experts may say that it is an artistic discipline, I consider myself a craftsman of the smile, carving my piece of wood. Ainhoa Gana did her doctoral thesis on our team. He says that ours is a socio-educational clowning: a community, humanitarian, rebel and socio-educational pedagogical practice. These are big words, but starting to think about it, it fits well into what I want to do, both on and off the stage.

How do you feel that your work has been offered to the Basque society?

Humor is a refuge. “Euskara is our only free territory”, I would add to the phrase that humor is also the free territory, or so I live it. We have always been at the center of the Basque and Country, our team started from the need of a people. We come from a time when 80% of the children in our country were enrolled in Spanish. We knew what the north was: Basque, fun and values, with and for children. I believe that we have tried to filter reality through the eyes of our own colors and transmit messages of trust: “feel, think, act”, as the sculptor Gorriti taught us.

You’ve also tackled topics that might seem difficult from the humor. How did you manage to figure out the themes for the stage?

We have brought to the stage themes that we have experienced or that have come to us from the environment. I think it was a milestone when we worked on childhood cancer. We have worked with many bertsolaris, creators and associations in the Basque Country and I believe that this involvement has been key. Meet with these people who are experts on topics or who live from within. Humor isn’t just a laugh, humor is also a quiet place to share sorrows and joys. She's the girl from Marimotots Park, she stays with us and makes her way. The character was created for a session and we saw that it gave us many opportunities to work on many topics; it had a lot of strength and transmitted a lot of love. We’ve worked on every topic we’ve tried to work on, there are many more to work on. We have done so with rebellion and transformative intentions.

A very significant image was the parade called by Nuestro Manos when the Tour crossed the border of Bidasoa on the Santiago Bridge. The French police stood in front of you, but Pyrrich didn't stop whistling and you went along with the citizens.

We looked at each other and decided to keep going until they stopped us. The clown gave me the ability to do that. Pirrich feels that there is someone in this situation who is also beating the whistle. Even Aiora, but it would make it harder. Pirrich feels that he wants to be there at that moment and is able to be there in some way, he has superpowers, he has wings to keep going. We’ve had a lot of things like this in 30 years and, like that day, we’ve never been alone: we come from the people and we belong to the people. We will also receive the popular homage from the village. We have given a lot, Pyrrich has asked me a lot, but we have also received a lot, with guilt. Thank goodness, I've had a strong and willing surveillance team around so I can walk like this. When I was a mother, for example, the first tooth of the firstborn was discovered by my mother, or when she was sick, she often called her mother. Grandparents have relieved us of the great burden of care in society. Will we ever pay back what we have done? I have had three children and I have had a strong care team while I was in the square. and I have had to give up a few moments of motherhood (like so many other puppeteer mothers or fathers). I've been a different kind of mother, and I've never even had internal convulsions. I am very grateful to the care team of families and friends who were in the area.

“We come from Pirritx, Failx and Marimotots and we belong to the people. We will also receive a popular tribute from the people.”

 

When Pirrich had Pupu and Lore, you also chose to educate him in the group. How did you create Pirrich’s Maternity Story?

We’ve never been in a relationship between peasants. Marimotots joined us, there is also Grandma Josefina, but we are not brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles... Why do we have to define everything? I had a son in the time of Takolo, Pirritx and Bankruptcy and when I got pregnant with twins 15 years ago we decided to take this to the stage as well. Ayora is pregnant, so is Pirritx. They are the children of Pirrich, and also of the group Eek. Motherhood requires hands, and sometimes protection to cry, or time to sleep... that is, care, in a comfortable and warm environment. You don’t have to have a specific relationship with these people around you, they just have to be willing to take care of, protect, and help you and the children, just like you will do yourself at another time. Pupuk, Lorek and Pirrich had this.

The care was also important when you raised the issue of death in Mother’s Nuts. When the mother of the Marimotots died and it rained outside and inside her, the clown protected her and gave her the necessary tools to be able to stay in the rain.

That show was so beautiful. As a society, we have strayed far from death, even from life itself. And from nature. We are not aware that death is part of life. We should internalize it, culturally we have forgotten it, we don’t even want to think about it. Working from humor to death can be uncomfortable, but we saw it as necessary: grandparents of our fans die, parents die, even children die... We are often called to send a message to a fan because someone has died. Why not cultivate death? If we felt more natural and put words to the emotions surrounding death, we would be more tender for the fact that the mourning itself was hard and we would find meaning in it. I think of the dolmens and cronies of the time of the Ammonites of Ammon, their knowledge and their attachment to nature. They lived their death in a different way, and we can be orphaned if we don't work on the subject.

“I love you” turns 20 this year and you have talked about the importance of expressing emotions. The “family constitution” that appears in the book Material for the Construction of Eider Rodríguez (SUSA, 2021) comes to mind. As the writer explains, in many families there is no custom for this and for many people it is not easy to find words to release emotions.

Eider Rodríguez says that, in a certain way, children under 6 years of age express their emotions more recklessly and I also believe that, to a large extent. It’s often difficult, but like when we’re in mourning, naming feelings and emotions and saying them in a loud voice is very important. If we are doing this, we are doing conscious exercise and this helps us a lot. We have said a lot “I love you” and we have been told a lot. That song somehow opened up something and it’s not ours, it’s made its way. It was a song we sang to a gypsy girl named Romi 20 years ago, and it opens a window. In the May 3rd Memorial, we were told: “You taught the people who knew how to love to say I love you.” I don't think it's such a big deal. If we knew “I love you” before, we may have needed to say a more intimate area. If this song has served us to realize that the Basques know how to say “I love you” in a loud, joyful way, we are very happy.

The puppeteers Anita Maravillas told us that they claim “the right to live free in a space without violence.” The chances of laughing are not the same for all children. What do you want to give to the children you have had in these years?

This right must be guaranteed. In many situations it is very difficult to transmit messages of trust and hope to children, and we can only offer them a sweet moment. We live in a very evil society, in a very erratic world, and there are children who have little chance of laughing, little chance of even living. For example, 18,000 Palestinian children have already died, how many more will die? This should fill the streets with protests and we should conduct general strikes. A lot of kids all over the world have a hard smile. And the moment he loses his smile, the person gets sick. It's like mutilating. In the same way, many times we have been surprised by the strength of the receiver, you think that you are going to brighten someone or an environment and others give you strength. Humor is an attitude in life, constructive, transformative, you can laugh from humor but also cry, it is a constant exchange of emotions.

“If we used to say ‘I love you,’ we may have needed a more intimate space.”

 

And you make that exchange in Basque. In Kukui Pirrich says that the Basque language is the suitcase of colors, the warm breeze, the honey, the beautiful words in the river, the candy, the umbrella...

We created this song with the words of Miren Amuriza. He shared with us several reflections on the Basque language and one was that the Basque language is a colourful suitcase full of amazing things. If Pirritx is anything, it's Basque. And that's Aiora, too. A tool to transmit our vision of the world and the way of life. I owe everything to the Basque language.

How does Pirrich invite children who don’t speak Basque?

Offering from love, from empathy, from knowing and understanding the other, rather than from imposing. Children come to the Basque Country from other realities and we approach them in our language. It is very important to welcome him to Basque and not forget his own, to listen to him, that is, to invite the child to give from him, so that his language, lifestyle and culture also have a place.

“If Pirritx is anything, it’s Basque. And that's Aiora, too. I owe it all to Israel.”

 

How are Aiora and Pirritx now?

Aiora and Pirritx are at peace with each other. Aiora is 50 years old and I’m talking about another serenity, another serenity, I’m placing myself there, linked to creativity, looking at the members of the group from behind the scenes. I had to slow down because of neumonia, but I'm there. In June we have a special session with the Tolosa txistulari band and Pirritx will be there. I see myself on the threshold of a new stage in life The group also goes through transformation, we are dominating people and this transformation will take shape in rhythms. I realized that there are other things that can be done, from another pause. And there we are: both me and Pirritx.