Jean-René Guérin spends an evening on gallo and lets the language show its many facets. The session mixes short films, slideshows and told stories, and the audience is there to join in, not to sit still. What holds it together is the langue gallèse itself, carried by a host who works for it, not explained from outside. A friendly get-together follows at the salle polyvalente of Lamballe-Armor.
Tag: regional-languages
La langue des crêpes, a tongue not handed down
Jean Philippe Davodeau turns crêpes on stage and asks why the langue bretonne his grandparents spoke was never passed down to him. The question sends him to psychanalyse and sociologie to work out what happened au pays. What comes back is a cabaret conférence that keeps slipping out of his hands into situations with no sense in them. Two comédiens chanteurs hold the stage with him, Bob Simon among them.
Brendan ha sekred Kells, film en breton
Ti Douar Alré, a house of Breton language and culture, shows this film dubbed into Breton for children. The story is set in ninth-century Ireland, in the fortified abbey of Kells, where Brendan is a monk of twelve. Brother Aidan, a master illuminator and keeper of a fabulous unfinished book, takes him on as apprentice. To finish the manuscript Brendan leaves the abbey for the first time and meets Aisling, the wolf-child.
Jules Gros in Breton at La Roche-Jagu
Jules Gros spent a lifetime writing down how Trégor actually talks, and the Domaine départemental de la Roche-Jagu has turned that record into a room to walk through. Olivia Blondel made the sculptural half and Gaby Kerdoncuff the sound. This guided reading of the exhibition is given entirely in Breton, announced by the estate as Gweladenn heñchet en diskouezadeg. The manor runs it as one of its own Breton language visits.
Gwerzioù & sonioù du Trégor, Ifig and Nanda Le Troadec
Ifig and Nanda Le Troadec are a couple on stage as in life, and Brittany’s fest-noz dancers know them for the kan ha diskan of Centre-Bretagne and Haute-Cornouaille. This veillée leaves the dance floor for the gwerzioù and sonioù of their native Trégor, sung in French and in Breton. Love songs sit beside epic tales, grandes complaintes, satires, children’s songs and darker ones. These were fireside songs, or songs thrown out at fairs and pardons.
Jules Gros, une vie à l’écoute du breton populaire
Daniel Giraudon and Francis Favereau sit down at the Domaine départemental de la Roche-Jagu to talk about Jules Gros. He gave much of a very long life to noting the Breton spoken around him in Trégor, one turn of phrase at a time. The result, the monumental Trésor du breton parlé, is why his name still circulates among speakers of the language. The man who emerges from their recollections is a polyglot and a collector of the vernacular.
Breton tales read at the Ti ar Bleizig crèche
Two hours of tales told in Breton, read aloud at the Multi-Accueil Ti ar Bleizig in Saint-Thégonnec Loc-Éguiner. The reading is done by volunteers from the commune, which built the crèche’s pedagogical project with it to carry Breton forward. The house was the first structure to reach level 1 of the Ya d’ar brezhoneg Petite enfance charter, and it runs weekly Breton sessions with the association KLT. Entry is free.
The île Vierge and its keepers, guided in breton
This walk on the île Vierge is delivered in breton, and its own announcement is written in that language before any other. The guide talks through the island’s history, its lighthouses and the life of the diwallerien, the keepers, in days gone by. The group gathers at Kastell Ac’h to take the boat, then has half an hour guided and half an hour free on the island. The tall lighthouse itself is not entered and the party stays between four and nine.
Conférence-concert de Brieg Guerveno et Maïlys Princé
The Micro-folie at Ploërmel puts a talk and a concert in one evening at Les Carmélites. Maïlys Princé, a Breton content creator from the area, opens on the cultures and languages of Brittany as social media carry them, and on what digital mediation does to intangible heritage. The singer Brieg Guerveno then takes up the question « Pourquoi chanter en langue minorisée ? ». His concert of new work in Breton closes the night.
Une saïrée avec Mélie at the Ferme d’Antan
Mélie is the farmer at the Écomusée de La Ferme d’Antan, and as the light goes she hands visitors her own chores: the animals to see to, the eggs to gather. The work earns a collation à l’ancienne by the fire in the hôté. Mélie speaks cor’gallo throughout and is understood anyway, which is the whole point of the hour. Twelve people at most join her, as one of the Minutes Bleues sessions set in Côtes-d’Armor heritage places at dawn or dusk.