Photography Performance

My fiance', Lilik, and I recently had a pre-wedding photo shoot for our marriage this coming May. We wanted to do something out of the ordinary, and with the help of our photographer, Ricky from Nomadan Studio, along with several friends, we set out for a full-day adventure on the train from Yogyakarta to Solo. While this event was aimed to be a photo shoot, in the end it also turned out to be a performance, for us, our friends, and all passengers involved. The onlookers not only got a kick out of seeing us in the traditional costumes of Ajuna and Srikandi, the Javanese warriors, but also participated in the act of the shoot, becoming both the audience and the subjects.

Potret Manehna, an Innovation of the Traditional

I recently was invited to perform for the opening of a new gallery, Gallery Syang, in Magelang, Indonesia. I invited violinist Eko Balung, along with Sundanese gamelan musicians Asep Saepudin and Nandang, to join me in creating an experimental opera that combined elements of traditional Sundanese music and opera into a contemporary context. We innovated two traditional Indonesian songs, Potret Manehna (Sundanese, meaning 'The Portrait of You'), and Warung Pojok (Javanese, meaning 'The Food Stand on the Corner') over an intensive one-week rehearsal period. I also made my costume, which I had envisioned as a giant opera skirt with a traditional Javanese kebaya (woman's blouse). For the skirt I used a large bamboo bird cage, which I covered with fabric and an extra large skirt.
What excited me the most about this project was the passion I received from the musicians, whose cross of music styles was refreshing for everyone, and turned out to make a fabulous sound. I loved using opera as a way to express the quirkiness of character and performance, while still focusing on the sensuality and freedom of musical instrumentation. Music, I find, is an excellent way to draw an audience in and invite them to 'feel' the rhythms. The music proves later to be more than just an instrumental performance, but also one with surprise and expression, in the special moments where the theatrical emerges. I have been realizing more and more recently, after being in Indonesia for nearly four years, that what excites me the most about the traditional styles of music and dance I have been studying here, is how they can be blended into contemporary performance practices. This project is one example of the possibility of innovation and collaboration between different art styles and traditions, and in the end it was a great success!! The audience loved it, as did the performers!!

Sabana Grande

I recently participated in a dance choreography piece directed by contemporary choreographer Fitri Setyaningsih, titled Sabana Grande. The piece was developed over the span of three months, with intensive weekend rehearsals in Yogyakarta and Solo. Sabana Grande was inspired by Fitri's experience on a three-month residency in Venezuela, where she witnessed vast expanses of mountains dotted with rocks and cows, invoking a sense of solitude and sleep. Dancers included Retno Sayekti Lawu, Via Rahmatila,Yuni Wahyuning and traditional master dancer Rusini Sidi. The choreography was accompanied by live clarinet, bass guitar and electronic sound, composed by Nadias Rushendro and Bagus Triwayu Utomo. Sabana Grande was performed for the opening of Gedung Salihara on November 11th and 12th, 2008, in Jakarta.

Jatiwangi International Performance Art Festival 2008

Yet another year of participating in the fabulous Jatiwangi International Performance Art Festival. Unfortunately I had to come two days late because of the kemana pun project, and leave a day early because of the village library project (check out my other site: http://thevillagelibrary.blogspot.com/). So it's been a very busy past couple of months. But the JAF Festival was really wonderful, and I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to participate, again. Curated this year by Juliana Yasin and Heru Hikayat (who did an excellent job), the JAF Festival was spread across seven villages in Majalengka, West Java, and lasted over the span of nine days. Performance artists from all over the world participated, and countries represented included Thailand, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, United States, Malaysia, Dubai and various locations in Indonesia. All artists were unique and wonderful, and we felt like one big family gathering to laugh, make music, dance, eat and support each other in creating awesome performance pieces. Situated in individual family homes, each artist got a direct taste of life in Indonesia, and instantly felt a 'part of the family', eating meals together and playing with the hundreds of village children nearby. Each artist was also provided with a personal assistant to help them prepare for performance, and I was blessed with the lovely Umi Lutfi, my dear friend and kick-ass assistant. For my own project, I made a film that offered glimpses of the many different activities of people's hands in the surrounding areas of Jatiwangi. These activities included ironing, straightening out bent nails, applying henna design, cooking, playing music, sewing and more. For the performance, I set up the film to be displayed in the JAF rooftile factory (for more info read my past Jatiwangi post from June 2007), candle-lit and everything. In the end of the film, a series of images of many hands together was displayed. At this moment the audience was invited up to stick their hands in mud and leave their own imprints on the pictures reflecting on the projection screen. My hope was that this would invite the audience to focus on their own hands, and also create a sense of 'togetherness' between all audience members. All in all, the project was a success, and I felt really good about it. Additionally, for fun, I also had the chance to dance a Jaipongan mask dance (newer traditional dance style from West Java) with a local JAF member, Anex. We performed following the shadow puppetry performance of my good friend Carrie Morris (see link below), and it was a full audience of local village members and JAF artists and friends. The performance was a big hit, very funny, and in the end audience members came up to join in the dance. A hidden gift of the performance for me was that the sarong in my costume kept falling down in the end. This offered itself as a hilarious mix to the already crazy character, and the chaos of everything left audience members laughing out loud, which is always a key aim in my performances: laughter and enjoyment! So all in all, the festival was fabulous, I had a great time, and if I have the chance to join again in the future, I most definitely will. Thank you to all the organizers at JAF, all the wonderful people in Jatiwangi and surrounding areas, to Juliana and Heru, and all other amazing artists involved! Hope to see you again next year.

kemana pun, the result, or something in that direction

The last two days before our big collaboration performance at Lembaga Indonesia Perancis (French-Indonesian Cultural Center/LIP) was big work. No stage manager, very small budget, difficulty to come to an agreement... We worked two days nonstop from morning until night, preparing installations, figuring out how to position the projector and set the stage, choosing music,and most of all, trying to come to some kind of agreement on what we were going to do for the performance. I remember clearly the last hour before performance, when we were still taping down the screen on our turned-around stage. By that time I was pretty exhausted, struggling with difficult double-tape and hungry. Talks of having some kind of structure had somehow started to move in the right direction, but still with loose ends and possible change at any time. When I look back on it, despite the difficulty and sometimes frustration, I like that our project was always changing and growing. We had no idea what would develop when we started. And we had to keep remembering that any expectations we might have had were not guaranteed to actually be used or develop into anything. It was a really good test on ego, which every artist needs sometimes I think.

We used the entire space at LIP, which I liked. In the garden in the beginning of the show, the audience could wander from performer to performer, who were each in their own individual worlds. I was at the sink, a collage of hundreds of women from sexy anorexic magazines behind me (you know the ones, think Cosmo, Lucky, all the others..), in my ugly teeth mask, big butt and all, trying to look pretty while at the same time bandaging all my toes and other wounds. Eventually over time all performers began to gather and move toward the gallery space, where Koni Herawati, one of the other artists, had created an installation of bamboo and hanging objects. There our individual characters began to emerge into one, we were walking in straight lines through the space (which was a long, narrow space), slowly removing our costumes and hanging them from the bamboo and hanging hooks throughout the space (no, this was not a strip tease and no, we were not naked). Eventually one by one we moved to the door by the auditorium, or theater space, in which the outline of each body was traced on the door before moving into the 'performance' space. In the auditorium, we had reversed the usual use of a stage, so that the audience sat on the open floor space, and we were positioned on the sitting area, which was a series of long stairs going up to the lighting box. On the stairs we had set up a long piece of white cloth, onto which was projected the image of a flowing river which Carrie Morris, another one of the artists, had recorded during our residency. We positioned ourselves on the stairs as if we were sleeping or lounging, no faces pointed directly toward the audience. Over a decent period of time, one by one our mumbling would slowly begin, until the mumbling grew louder and louder and eventually was drained out by the sound of the rushing water. The end. Lights out.

It's a good experience to participate in a collaboration, even if it's difficult. It's also a good experience to feel like you're already booked for a performance but still don't know exactly what you're doing, up to the hour before you're on. Somehow we pulled it off, and I think we managed to put on a pretty good, interesting, unique show. Don't ask me if I had it to do over whether I would agree to participate in the collaboration again. But I probably would. Why not? It was a good experience.