Guieldu at the Festillingües Festival

Avilés

LMinorised languages filled La Grapa with music, literature, and creation. Guieldu played at home.

For four days, the Fes­till­ingües fes­ti­val brought La Gra­pa in Avilés to life with a pro­gramme com­bin­ing music, lit­er­a­ture, work­shops, the­atre, debates, and diverse ways of engag­ing with minorised lan­guages and cul­tures. For us, the event had a tru­ly spe­cial mean­ing: on Sat­ur­day, we were play­ing at home, at the heart of a fes­ti­val that high­lights a core ele­ment of our own identity.

The musi­cal sec­tion had already kicked off on Fri­day with Mes­tu­ra and Rubén Bada. The fol­low­ing morn­ing, activ­i­ties resumed with work­shops and ses­sions focused on region­al lan­guages. Among them was the music cre­ation work­shop led by our friend Vero Rubio—one of those inspir­ing ini­tia­tives that remind us a lan­guage isn’t just some­thing to pre­serve; it is also a liv­ing tool for cre­at­ing new works.

And a few hours lat­er, it was our turn to close the day’s musi­cal programme.

Play­ing at home is always an excit­ing chal­lenge and, at the same time, offers a unique­ly warm wel­come. La Gra­pa, the old fish mar­ket square that now serves as an entrance to the Oscar Niemey­er Inter­na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, is a dis­tinc­tive space in Avilés, and it is always spe­cial to see it filled with cul­tur­al events. It is one of those places that could eas­i­ly host even more activ­i­ty through­out the year, and see­ing a fes­ti­val bold­ly fill it with cre­ative projects over sev­er­al days shows just how much can be achieved when we make the most of our urban heritage.

It is admit­ted­ly an inti­mate set­ting, so our con­cert unfold­ed in close prox­im­i­ty to the audi­ence, far from the “big fes­ti­val stages” we per­formed on dur­ing the sum­mer. The crowd was split between the seat­ed front rows and those who pre­ferred stand­ing at the back. This clos­er for­mat invit­ed us to explore a more atmos­pher­ic side of Guiel­du, allow­ing cer­tain tunes to breathe with a dif­fer­ent sense of calm.

Our rela­tion­ship with our native lan­guage was also part of our musi­cal nar­ra­tive. Most of our vocal tracks are sung in Asturian—not as a polit­i­cal state­ment, but sim­ply because it is the lan­guage in which singing comes nat­u­ral­ly to us and forms an inte­gral part of who we are. At a fes­ti­val specif­i­cal­ly ded­i­cat­ed to minorised lan­guages, it was impos­si­ble not to reflect on this. Asturi­an still lacks offi­cial legal sta­tus in Asturias, where­as Miran­dese, its clos­est lin­guis­tic rel­a­tive just across the bor­der, has been offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized in Por­tu­gal since 1999.

This con­nec­tion also reflects in our music. Angueira, for instance, orig­i­nates from a tra­di­tion­al melody from Miran­da do Douro, a ter­ri­to­ry where a vari­ant of Astur-Leonese remains vibrant and alive. You don’t have to look far to find these shared cul­tur­al bridges.

And even though the con­cert had a more relaxed tone, as often hap­pens when we play, the music even­tu­al­ly led peo­ple to dance.

As soon as the first chords of Óise l’Ix­uxú struck, a few audi­ence mem­bers start­ed danc­ing the muiñeiras of the set. Short­ly after, the dan­za formed—the tra­di­tion­al com­mu­nal ring dance so deeply root­ed in Asturi­an her­itage (very sim­i­lar to Bre­ton cir­cle dances) and par­tic­u­lar­ly alive in Avilés. Young and old shared the steps togeth­er spon­ta­neous­ly, with­out need­ing any expla­na­tion or reminder that this, too, was an essen­tial part of the show.

These are small moments, but they are prob­a­bly the ones that best explain why mak­ing music this way makes so much sense.

Through­out the week­end, Fes­till­ingües cel­e­brat­ed lan­guages, artis­tic cre­ation, and cul­ture. We joined on Sat­ur­day to add our music to the gath­er­ing and end­ed up expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing even sim­pler and more pro­found: peo­ple singing, danc­ing, and rec­og­niz­ing them­selves in what was hap­pen­ing right in front of the stage.

Play­ing at home is all about that. You don’t need to explain who you are when part of what you car­ry in your songs is already all around you.

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Video and Concert Photos

© Pho­tos: Nacho G.S.

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