BARZHONEG » Champ libre

Diwan Kastellin : c’est parti

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:00:00 +0000

Au bout de moins d’un an de travail, l’école Diwan a ouvert à Chateaulin. Inauguration et portes ouvertes vendredi prochain.

Les parents d?élèves ont le plaisir de vous inviter à visiter l?école Diwan de Châteaulin nouvellement créée. Vous pourrez y rencontrer l?institutrice bilingue et découvrir la pédagogie et notamment le principe de l?immersion linguistique breton-français, source d?éducation précoce à la différence et favorisant l?apprentissage ultérieur d?autres langues.

A l?issue de cette demi-journée portes ouvertes, pour fêter l?événement que représente l?ouverture de cette nouvelle école, un concert gratuit sera organisé de 18 h à 21 h, place de la petite gare avec Gwennyn, la jeune et talentueuse chanteuse bretonne qui monte. A l?issue de ce concert, des musiciens locaux seront également présent pour faire résonner les sonorités irlandaises et bretonnes. Restauration et boissons possibles sur place.

VENDREDI 14 SEPTEMBRE DE 18H A 21H, PLACE DE LA PETITE GARE, Châteaulin

Restauration possible sur place (Buvette, grillades, gâteaux)

plus d’infos : http://diwanbrogastellin.net/aperoconcert.html

Sea-shanty festival a porthole on Brittany’s mode de vie

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:00:00 +0000

An annual festival revives old Breton music ? one aspect of the region’s burgeoning cultural pride.

from the August 16, 2007 edition – Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0816/p20s01-litr.html

By Susan Sachs | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Paimpol, France
« The wind laughs in their eyes, these men with the scent of the ocean, » sings Hervé Guillemer. « They have eyes that cry waves, these men on the jetties who yearn for the past, when life was as wide as the sea. »

Mr. Guillemer has a white beard, a sun-blistered face, and the broad, calloused hands of a laborer. In fact, he is a storyteller who works a burnished yellow concertina in wheezy complement to seafaring tales from his native Brittany.

His songs and poems are inspired by a sense of history and his inheritance ? specifically, the 5,000 weathered postcards that his Breton grandfather sent home from all points of the compass over a lifetime of whaling and sailing.

But being Breton is not all about old sailors’ songs and salt-caked memories, Guillemer insists to me later, in a stern effort to correct an outsider’s thinking. « Breton culture is alive, and it’s always being revised. »

Apparently, it is. In an increasingly standardized France, where more people buy their bread in supermarkets than at the corner boulangerie, that dose of fierce regional pride is as refreshing as an ocean breeze ? and something locals relish.

Over the past 20 years, Brittany, once derided as the unruly stepchild of France, and still considered one of its more obstinate family members, has declared its singularity proudly. An explosion of new bands has rediscovered Breton music, much of it similar to sea shanties of the British and Canadian coasts. Classes in Breton dancing and the Breton language are now common here.

At the Sea Shanty Festival earlier this month, just one of the cultural celebrations that bloom every summer weekend across Brittany, that pride was on full display. For three days, piers were crowded with men dressed as pirates, women in homely linen caps, and musicians singing sailor songs. Couples danced on docks; great circles of people stamped jigs.

Many regions of France were once, like Brittany, fiercely independent kingdoms in a Medieval patchwork, and still boast of distinct cuisines and costumes. One or two nurture the memory of languages long fallen out of use. But few embrace their difference as ferociously as Brittany, which revels in its own music, legends, and a certain swaggering pride.

These days, in fact, the revived identity is so strong that Brittany has splintered into micro-identities. Northern Brittany claims bragging rights over southern Brittany; coastal towns bicker over whose oyster beds are best.

Bretons insist they are made of different stuff than anyone else in France. And woe to those who venture to suggest that Breton culture might exist more in the realm of nostalgia than in daily life. « To be Breton is to embody the best of France, » says Loïc Pinçon, a retired handyman from Tréguier, a port town west of Paimpol. It is hard to miss the sneer in his voice. « We are not a museum, » he adds. « But if you’re not one of us, you won’t understand. »

? ? ?

Brittany is the broad thumb of land in northwestern France that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. It abounds with legends of sorcerers, wind spirits, and fairies from the days when English kings controlled the region. Inland from Paimpol, for example, are the remains of the dense Brocéliande forest, reputedly the stomping grounds of the Knights of the Round Table and Merlin the Magician.

The region has its own Celtic language, Breton ? or Brezhoneg in the vernacular ? which now appears on street signs along with the French names of towns. It also has a tiny separatist movement, its own black-and-white-striped flag, and a history of hostility to state interference.

Evidence of its stubborn distinctness jumps out everywhere. Take the highways. Throughout much of France, toll roads crisscross the countryside in a vast network leading, usually, to Paris. Not in Brittany. The locals claim they are exempt from « road taxes » because of a deal worked out in 1499, when Duchess Anne de Bretagne married the French king Charles VIII.

If you want to drive to Paris, you need a map. There are no signs on Breton highways indicating the way to the capital ? as if no one would really want to go there. The first sign for Paris appears when you enter Normandy, the next region over to the east.

The prickly Bretons have fascinated the rest of the French for hundreds of years.

« Brittany is an old rebel, » wrote Victor Hugo in the 19th century, one of a pantheon of French literary figures who used the region as an emblem of French otherness. Hugo was no fan. He described Bretons as rustic contrarians clinging to a « dead language » and rejecting any ideas emanating from Paris. Even the invigorating ocean wind only « irritates » them, he complained.

The Bretons of the interior, the peasants, have typically been portrayed as the rubes of France, fanatically Roman Catholic and condemned by their poor inland soil to a plebeian diet of potatoes. The popular children’s storybook character, Bécassine, is the ultimate caricature, a bumbling rural cook in a flapping traditional white cap.

Many Bretons still resent the old image of themselves as an obstinate people clinging to a language no one else speaks. « The people of the Brittany coast were more cosmopolitan than much of the rest of France, » says Olivier Blaizot, who plays guitar for Cap Horn, one of the region’s more popular sea-shanty bands. « The fishing fleets went to Newfoundland, Iceland, Canada, Mauritania and all over the world. »

? ? ?

Whether manifest in squabbles over Bécassine’s Breton adventures or the relative merits of coastal oyster beds, it’s a tangled web of legacy, lore, and fierté that can make the region snub the most admiring outsiders ? even one who thought she had a certain Breton claim.

In these parts of Brittany, I quickly learn that my French in-laws are not considered real Bretons, as they and I have always assumed they were. They live in Guérande, a medieval town south of the shipbuilding center of St. Nazaire. All the street signs there are in French and Breton; the black-and-white regional flag flies from sailboats. And a family party is sometimes announced as a fest-noz, its Breton name.

But during World War II, the French Vichy regime redrew the regional boundaries within occupied France. The southern portion of historic Brittany, including Guérande, was placed in another region called Loire-Atlantique.

« It sounds like you met up with the real irredentists, » said Philippe Vandunberghe, the triangle player in the group Cap Horn, when I tell him of my in-laws’ newly contested roots. As a native of Dunkerque, at the northern tip of France, he’s sympathetic: « I know what it feels like. I’ve lived in Brittany for 40 years. It’s only with the passage of many years that I’ve been accepted. »

‘Don’t rush!’ The art of Breton building, old-style

admin — Wed, 30 May 2007 22:00:00 +0000

Discover the works of Tiez Breizh, non profit organisation dedicated to old building renovations

Published Date: May 10, 2007 , Kuwait Times
By Simon Coss

Herve Even puts down a mortar-spattered trowel and steps out into the warm Breton sunshine for a well-earned break. All morning he has patiently been teaching a group of dedicated amateurs the right way to flick lime-based plaster onto the inside walls of a 150-year-old granite-built Breton farmhouse nestled among the wheat fields in the hills overlooking the picturesque seaside town of Saint Lunaire.

It is a time consuming process that requires just the right gestures to ensure the lime-plaster sticks to the walls and can then be smoothed over to give the desired finish. But time is something Even, a qualified builder who works as a trainer with a not-for profit group called Tiez-Breiz, does not seem particularly worried about. « I’ve been running these kinds of workshops for over 25 years, » he explained, « and what I always tell people at the beginning of a session is that it’s urgent to do nothing. »

Brittany, with its hundreds of kilometers of wild coastline, in recent years has emerged as a favorite area for overseas buyers to snap up a second home or take the plunge and move to France permanently. Britons top the list of overseas investors and old granite buildings like the Saint Lunaire farmhouse Even is helping to renovate are a favorite purchase. In 2005, the last year for which it has figures, the regional economic studies center, the Cellule Economique de Bretagne, said 2,186 Breton buildings were sold to British buyers out of a total of just under 3,000 bought by overseas house hunters. German investors proved the next biggest market, with 115 houses bought.

Unlike some local groups, Tiez Breiz says it welcomes this influx of overseas buyers. « The Brits are renovating houses that would have fallen into ruin otherwise, we have quite a few British members and we have published leaflets in both English and German, » said group coordinator Mickael Delagree.

Tiez Briez is open to private individuals and professional builders interested in learning old construction techniques. Aside from the lime plastering that Even is demonstrating today, the group also runs weekend courses that, among other things, teach people how to make beaten earth walls, lay terra cotta floors without using cement-based mortars, or even how to build a traditional bread oven.

But for all of the workshops he runs, Even has one never-changing message: don’t rush into things. « You need to understand the building you want to work on, » he explained, adding that all old buildings are different and that construction techniques ideal for some will only cause headaches with others. « These renovations can take a long time, it is a real choice to want to work in this way. I know people who have taken two years just to undo bad building jobs done by previous owners, » he said.

Tiez Breiz was set up over 30 years ago and in that time has seen its membership swell from around 30 to today’s figure of around 900. Even says the group’s popularity is clear evidence that more and more people are interested in discovering building techniques that eschew modern obsessions with cement and plasterboard.

« When we first started out we were considered quite unconventional, but today I’ve been to trade fairs where more people are interested in finding out about the sorts of techniques we teach than the modern methods, » he said. Even argues that a rising awareness of the ecological advantages of using local materials where possible has fed interest in old building techniques.

« Our ancestors were eco-builders because they had to be. They could only use local materials. But now people are actively asking for these kinds of techniques. I know builders around here who do about 90 percent of their business using traditional methods, » he says.

One of the characteristics of Tiez Breiz workshops is that they are always held on real building sites owned by members of the group. The house in Saint Lunaire, for example, belongs to Dominique Cutuli and his wife, who are hoping to convert part of their farmhouse into a rural hostel known as a gite.

« It has certainly helped me to progress with the work, » Cutuli says during a copious communal lunch he and his wife have laid on for the dozen or so hungry trainee builders who have each paid around 70 euros ($95) to take part in the two-day session. Most of the people taking part in the Saint Lunaire session have an old house they are trying to renovate.

« I have an old wall at home that I want to re-plaster using lime-plaster and I can’t find a builder to do it, so I thought why not learn how to do it myself? » explained Brigitte Plassard, who lives two-and-a-half hours drive away, near the western Brittany city of Brest.

Plassard said the techniques had seemed hard at first but that she had now got the hang of things. « But this is something you had to learn on a building site. It would never have worked in a classroom, » she added. Forty-year-old Stephane Coat, who recently retired as a submariner in the French navy, has come along as he wants to renovate an old building he has bought, also in western Brittany. « I keep bees so I need more space and I have the time now so I thought, why not? » he explained.

Marie-Pierre Hollacou, who is at the training weekend with her husband Hubert, is a Tiez Breiz old hand. « This is my third training session. We have a house we have been renovating for seven years and the group has really taught us some important lessons, » she said. « We have learnt that with old buildings you can’t always do what you want, you have to take the time to understand your building, » she explained.

With interest in the group growing all the time, Even seems confident he will be running weekends like the Saint Lunaire course for many years yet. « When I started out we used to have to cancel one session out of two, because not enough people signed up. Now more often than not we are running extra courses. I’m very optimistic, » he said, picking up his trowel and heading back indoors. Damp lime-plaster waits for no man. – AFP

Diwan : un projet à chateaulin

admin — Tue, 01 May 2007 22:00:00 +0000

Une nouvelle classe maternelle en breton pourra ouvrir dès la rentrée 2007, à Chateaulin

Porté par plusieurs familles de Cast, Pleyben et Dineol, le projet d’ouverture d’une nouvelle école Diwan répond à une demande récurrente des familles de la région du Porzay, à mi chemin entre Quimper et Brest : l’association Diwan Bro Gastellin reprend en effet le flambeau du projet de Locronan, qui date de 2001. Réunion après réunion, ses promoteurs proposent d’expliquer la démarche d’immersion des écoles où la langue bretonne revit, permettant ainsi aux familles de transmettre ce lien essentiel grâce à une pédagogie éprouvée dans de nombreux pays où le bilinguisme est offert aux enfants dès la plus tendre enfance, comme au Québec.

Prochaine réunion : 4 mai 2007 à Pleyben – 20h30 - Sont conviées toutes les personnes intéressées par ce projet, qu’elles soient parents ou sympathisants, prêtes à s’investir dans ce projet et le mener à bien pour une ouverture en septembre 2007. Nous lançons donc un appel aux parents d’enfants né entre 2002 et 2005. En effet, un enfant de 5 ans peut très bien intégrer une filière breton en grande section de maternelle sans jamais avoir entendu la langue auparavant.

Plus d’infos : diwanbrogastellin.net

musique à gogo sur CDLIRE

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:00:00 +0000

Avec plus de 500000 références, la boutique en ligne CDLIRE est l’une des plus fournies du web. Elle n’oublie pas la musique traditionnelle

Son catalogue en la matière est d’ailleurs particulièrement fourni : outre les inévitables COOP BREIZH, et KELTIA MUSIC, spécialistes de la musique bretonne, les amateurs se régaleront d’un catalogue musiques du monde très fourni, qui vous fera voyager d’un continent à l’autre. Coté Irlandais, on retrouvera les mythiques labels GREEN LINNET, et le fameux CLADDAGH RECORDS qui hérite notamment du catalogue des Chieftains. Encore une preuve que le marché du disque se porte bien, malgré les pleurs incessants des monstres du secteur…

LIEN : CDLIRE.COM, disques rares et importation

Gerard Le Bris, bouilleur de père en fils

admin — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:00:00 +0000

chistr a dour : c’est la recette simplissime du lambig, que Gérard distille à la croisée des chemins. Nous avons rencontré l’homme et sa machine, officiant sur le parking de Plogonnec. il est l’un des 4 derniers bouilleurs ambulants du finistère.

Tout, sauf le musée !

Pratiquant un métier ancestral qui comptait plus d’une centaine de représentants il y de cela seulement cinquante ans Gérard le Bris , de St Thurien, a de quoi s’inquiéter. Il ne s?en cache pas : il aura de plus en plus de mal à vivre de son métier. L?Etat, depuis toujours, a son mot a dire sur cette activité quelque peu subversive : la circulation des alcools forts qui sortent de son alambic, acheté en 84 dans le pays de Mayenne, est minutieusement réglementée et controlée par les douanes. A 45 euros la passe, Gérard distille pour les particuliers qui produisent leur propre cidre environ 20 litres d?eau de vie (lambig) à 50°C. Et l?opération s?accompagne de son lot de formalité : la loi autorise les bouilleurs de cru à distiller 1000°C d?alcool par an. C?est là que le bât blesse : cette loi changera en 2007, instaurant pour les détenteurs de ce qui est perçu comme un privilège une taxe de 75 euros par an. La plupart des personnes agées, principaux clients du bouilleur ambulant, risquent d?être dissuadés de perpétuer une tradition qui va évidemment au delà du simple breuvage : c?est un véritable produit de luxe que fabrique cette machine d?un autre temps, dont l?exemplaire de Gerard Le Bris est l?un des derniers à être alimenté au feu de bois, absorbant tous les jours l?équivalent d?une corde (3m3) de bois.

Car, se plait à développer Gérard Le Bris, son lambig est un produit 100% naturel : tout ça n?est que ?chistr a dour?, de l?eau eau et du cidre. Cidre qui bien sur est pressé à partir de pommiers dispersés dans les innombrables vergers familiaux de la campagne bretonne d?avant le remembrement. Car c?est à une véritable tradition sociale que s?attaque l?état : distillé pour la famille, le lambig arrose les amis : remerciements, trocs, il symbolise une solidarité locale que l?état ne peut tolérer. L?alcool est dangereux, dit-on à l?assemblée nationale (voir discussions autour de l? article 17ter ) ! En attendant qu?une mobilisation efficace se mette en place pour sauver ce qui reste d?une civilisation millénaire, souhaitons que l?alambic de Gérard Le Bris continue paisiblement son activité de longues années plutot que d?aller renforcer, pas très loin de là, la fière équipe de la Maison des vieux métiers , à Argol.

Eoliennes de Cast : reportage sur le chantier

admin — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:00:00 +0000

Avec une puissance de 20MW, le parc éolien de Cast, sur les hauteurs de St Coulitz, sera le plus puissant de Bretagne. Nous avons suivi le chantier.

A proximité de la Chapelle St Gildas, les 8 éoliennes fourniront de quoi alimenter une grande partie de l’agglomération de Chateaulin.

Des fondations en béton à l’élévation des pales, en passant par le convoi exceptionnel de transfert des tronçons de 20 m de long qui étaient stockés pendant plusieurs mois au port de Brest, nous avons suivi toutes les étapes de cet impressionnant chantier qui a démarré au printemps 2006. Fabrication allemande, mise en oeuvre écossaise et irlandaise : une équipe internationale a séjourné dans la région pour mener à bien ce chantier dont voici un apercu, en partenariat avec ecolopop, revue internationale d’actualité écologique.

Leurenn Rennes : première sur le net

admin — Fri, 26 May 2006 22:00:00 +0000

C’est un évenement : le premier d’une série de 10 courts métrages en breton, tourné en 2005 par la société Pois Chiche Films, est en ligne.

Cette première production est issue des studios dizale, spécialisés dans le doublage en breton. On retrouve dans ce premier épisode une bande de joyeux drilles dont la prestation scénique marque un précédent de qualité dans la fiction en breton.

Le scénario : Leurenn Rennes raconte l’épopée d’un cabaret de seconde zone, gérée par un staff bretonnant. On y retrouve une équipe de doux dingues essayant joyeusement de s’accommoder avec le nouveau patron, bob. War da revr (on ne traduit pas), c’est le titre du tube chanté par les déjantés « Lanuz et Patrig » pour marquer le coup… On comprend là que cette série, qui a reçu le prix Prix Ar Men lors du Festival de Douarnenez 2005, marque un tournant radical dans les habitudes de la télévision bretonnante. On attend les prochains épisodes !

http://www.groupe-herbak.com/actualites/detail.php?actualite=33

Discover the cities of Brittany

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 23:00:00 +0000

Are you planning to come to Brittany for your next holiday ? Breton-Holiday is there for you…

Featuring extensive information about each single village of Brittany, breton holiday holds the most accurate database of places, forests, beaches. Webmasters are constantly improving this huge database of pictures and quality information : how to get to Brittany, where to stay, where to go out, where to eat, etc…

Sorted by counties (french for departement), breton holiday goes through an extensive tour of historic Brittany, including the old city of Nantes and its castle.

http://www.breton-holiday.com

Les pêcheurs ligneurs sur la toile

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 23:00:00 +0000

En ligne depuis le début de l’année, le site de l’Association des Ligneurs de la Pointe de Bretagne est un plaisir pour les yeux.. et une découverte inédite d’un métier qui a failli disparaître.

C’est une bien curieuse entrée en matière, pour un pêcheur, d’aller afficher les photos de son bateau sur Internet. L’Association des Ligneurs de la Pointe de Bretagne, en publiant au monde entier , grâce à l’internet, l’histoire de ces chevaliers de la houle, va toutefois au delà de la simple initiation au monde de la ligne.

Car la démarche de l’association doit assurer aux ligneurs la pérennité de leur modèle économique, et leur donner les moyens de contrer la puissance dévastatrices des chalutiers et autres dangers réels de la machine industrielle. Le site des ligneurs met ainsi en oeuvre, d’une façon unique, la traçabilité : chaque poisson pêché par un ligneur est estampillé d’une étiquette dont le numéro permet, sur le site, d’en retrouver l’origine : nom du patron, immatriculation du bateau, port d’attache, zone de pêche…

Destiné autant aux restaurateurs qu’aux poissoniers mais aussi évidemment au consommateur, le site offre ainsi une garantie supplémentaire de qualité à l’heure où l’on ne sait jamais très bien ce qu’on mange. On y retrouve aussi toute une iconographie, héritée des héroïques séances de prises de vue de Marc Sambi, qui illustre parfaitement le monde de la pêche à la ligne : la prise de bar dans le raz de sein reste un moment magique !

Et rien ne serait sans cette magnifique terre d’armorique qui héberge nos marins, à laquelle le site attache un honneur particulier. Deux cartes dynamiques présentent, d’une façon unique, l’ensemble des petits ports bretons où l’Association est présente et les archipels où se concentrent les zones de pêche.

C’est donc une mine d’information que l’Association a compilé pour ce site : description des espèces avec répartition géographique, recettes de poisson, explication des différentes techniques de pêche…

http://pointe-de-bretagne.fr/