The 48th Hestejada de las Arts d'Uzeste, "a meeting dedicated to reflection through dancing and laughter"

The festival in the city of South Gironde returns until August 23. Shows, music, and debates of all kinds will follow one another in an ever more creative and liberating spirit.

An event "for intellectuals, poets, and losers." These are the words its founder and renowned musician, Bernard Lubat , uses to describe the Hestejada de las Arts. A moment of sharing and artistic liberation that began this Sunday, August 17, and will continue until August 23, in the small village of Uzeste. One of the oldest festivals in Gironde is entering its ^48th edition.

From the Estaminet theater to the church, via the Café du sport, outdoors as well as in local homes, everything is put to the service of this "transgenerational and transartistic" festival. The program includes a week of performances that both connect and contradict each other: music of all genres (jazz, rock, classical), theater, pyrotechnics, street art, poems, debates, projections... All in a so-called "poielitic" spirit, a mixture of poetry, ethics, politics and humor.

"It's a gathering dedicated to collective reflection, dancing and laughing," Bernard Lubat explains. The program was meticulously developed by founder and artistic director Fabrice Vieira, with a single idea in mind: to promote creativity and freedom. "The freedom to take responsibility. We're not here for the public to reinforce their tastes, but for them to discover something else." More than a festival, Bernard Lubat describes it as a "laboratory of working artists."

"An artist is a researcher. We don't choose people who reproduce, but unique inventors." Bernard Lubat draws this search for innovation from his long musical career. "We must distinguish between basic music and elementary music. Do we want music to live or to sell?" He advocates popular education to "develop critical thinking" in a world that is going in circles.

"Like every year, the village will regain its former glory," comments this native of Uzeste. Born above the Estaminet stage, Bernard Lubat remembers the heyday of his village. "Today, we are in a musical as well as a medical desert," he laments. So, from one year to the next, he fights to continue these Hestejadas, a Gascon name meaning "the biggest party of the year."

And when asked, "Aren't you tired?" he replies, "I'm not dead! And every edition feels like the first." As it approaches its ^50th year, the festival continues to bring together artists delighted to experience this limitless creative freedom.

Programming on uzeste.org