Joxemiel Bidador during a lecture at the University. PHOTO: Manuel Castells

The researcher, Basque language teacher and philologist Joxemiel Bidador has passed away in Pamplona at the age of 39. The expert collaborated with the Chair of language and Basque Culture of the University of Navarra as a lecturer on several occasions and as the author of two chapters of the work Euskarazko Kazetaritza: gogoetak, esperientziak eta analisiak (Journalism in Basque: reflections, experiences and analysis), edited by the institution of campus.

Joxemiel Bidador González was born in Pamplona in 1970. graduate in Philology Basque, traditional dances and folklore in general were the subject of several of his researches. He was also a member of groups such as Danok Bat, Duguna and, more recently, the Danzantes de San Lorenzo. He was also a member of the Comparsa de Gigantes de Tudela.

At the age of 23 he published his first work on this field, Materiales para una bibliography sobre danza vasca, published in 1993 in the journal Cuadernos de Etnología y Etnografía Navarra. Among his texts stands out, above all, Dantzaren erreforma Euskal Herrian, a essay on the testimonies of priests about the dance developed in Euskal Herria between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, which in 2004 received the VI Miguel de Unamuno award of the City Council of Bilbao. In addition, in 2005 he became position of the coordination of the magazine Dantzariak of Euskal Dantzarien Biltzarra.

Bidador was also an expert in Basque literature and a writer, as well as a connoisseur of the history and ethnography of the region, as he demonstrated in the series of articles he published in Diario de Noticias under the heading Viejas historias de Navarra (Old Stories of Navarre). He was a member of Euskal Idazleen Elkartea, of which he was secretary for some years, and published numerous texts on Basque writers in general and Navarrese writers in particular, dedicating anthologies to authors such as Alexander Tapia-Perurena, Joxe Agerre, Larreko, Mikelestorena, etcetera. His best known work in this field is Materiales para una historia de la literatura vasca en Navarra ( Pamiela, 2004).