Fauzi Bowo, the governor of Jakarta, hoped that Indonesia’s 10th international dance festival, which opened on Monday, would brand “Kota Jakarta [Jakarta City] as a cultural city and main tourism destination in Indonesia”, whilst closely aligned the festival to Jakarta’s 483rd anniversary celebrations.
Contemporary feel: Muslimin B. Pranowo — a contemporary group from Indonesia, performs The Young, with two dancers. Courtesy of the Indonesian Dance FestivalBut how easy is it for Indonesia to form a contemporary cultural identity within this international setting?
If the festival’s opening ceremony is anything to go by — the answer is, “quite difficult”. No matter how physical, emotive or creative the performances, the Koreans still managed to steal the show.
In attempting to deliver a message that crosses cultural boundaries, the festival invited choreographers and dancers from around the globe.
Monday’s ceremony opened with three performances — two from Indonesian groups, and the last from South Korea — to initiate a “cultural collaboration… between Indonesian and foreign choreographers” in the hope of “innovative creativity”. Each group delivered performances of around 25-30 minutes, attempting to convey one of various “themes” — conscience, the adolescent mind, passion, greed.
A traditional piece, in memory of Gusmiati Suid (an artist from Sumatra famed for her development of Indonesia’s cultural scene) was performed first. Muslimin B. Pranowo — the second and more contemporary group from Indonesia, followed suit with its performance The Young, which attempted to delve into the “complex and dynamic setting of a teenagers’ journey in life”.
Indeed, Muslimin B. Pranowo achieved moderate success in this, the only props being sneakers scattered around the stage, and the music shifting from thumping drum beats, to sporadic radio clips and the buzzing of mosquitos. With only two dancers — a man and woman — the characters interacted well together, at times working in perfect unison, at times thrusting themselves at each other, tearing themselves away, standing up, falling down, experimenting with their movement as with the adolescence they were hoping to convey.
The sneakers featured, not unremarkably, about half-way through the piece — they were initially discovered by the male dancer who, in an impressive display of contortion, put one on and pulsated his feet about the stage, as though the shoe were in control. The “adolescent effect” relied, predictably, on discord — sporadic music, erratic behavior, minute-long pauses where the dancers would hold a primal pose, one on top of the other, then a great crashing fight; a shoe that had been put on delivering a new lease of energy.
Visually, it was impressive, the piece was exciting, but it lacked spectacle and was partly dwarfed by the subsequent Kim Jae-duk Project, which was introduced thereafter.
As the first intrinsically international contingent of the festival, the Kim Jae-duk Project certainly made an impact. Perhaps as equally impressive as the 8 or 9 dancers, however, was the live vocalist, situated facing the stage in the auditorium’s stairwell. His voice was electrifying, delivering piercing tones, and shrill cries, and “oomphs” and “aaaahs”, often contrasting to moments of stillness onstage.
Towards the end, he was joined by a three-piece modern rock band — two guitarists (one stage-left, the other stage-right), a drummer (complete with afro) and Kim Jae-duk himself (who, up until then had been part of the dance troupe) as an accompanying vocalist and occasional harmonica-player.
Compared to the more traditional music at the beginning, and indeed contrasting with the now-familiar dance work of sudden movement then precise unison that was occurring on stage, the music really lifted the atmosphere.
In aiming to “make every audience a performer”, Kim Jae-duk choreographed his dancers to enter the auditorium, “cross the borderline between seats and stage”, and before we knew it there were photographers holding the dancers’ props, spotlights streaming up and down the stairwells, and the obligatory clapping of hands in time with the beat.
An enjoyable, surreal perhaps, end to the first round of the festival’s half-week programme.
As a whole, the performances were generally well accomplished, delivered in a style that was mostly creative, and the various “themes” could, at times, be detected.
Never lacking in energy, the Indonesian groups were convincing, they performed with spirit, were choreographed well, but perhaps lacked the panache, the originality that South Korea provided in its climax of dance and music and light that stole the show at its close.
With this in mind, there is hope for Indonesia’s cultural scene; the festival was invigorating, creative, and a massive step forward.
Whether this can translate into the hive of cultural tourism that Governor Bowo envisages, is yet to be seen, however, certainly in the words of the ceremony’s compère that evening, the message was clear — “this is Indonesia, this is how we do things — together, joining hands.”
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