A misstep in Yulianti's choreography

A misstep in Yulianti's choreography

By Tetet Srie WD

JAKARTA (JP): Yulianti Parani is an artist to be reckoned with
and a contemporary choreographer with a love of the past.
However, her latest piece staged in Jakarta was seemingly out of
step with her ability.

A pioneer in educational dance and occasional author, Yulianti
wrote her master's thesis on the historical figure Daeng Parani,
the name she subsequently adopted for herself. She participates
actively in national and international forums on the performing
arts, and her works are frequently the subject of discussion.

The role of this energetic and vivacious woman in educating
her students to become choreographers cannot be ignored. She
started from ballet, but her love of Indonesia's cultural
heritage is evident in the way she has adapted herself to the
traditional Betawi and Melayu arts.

After an absence of nearly 10 years, Yulianti Parani appeared
at the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center on Nov. 14 and Nov. 15
with Nirkata. Senior dancers from the Jakarta Arts Institute,
where Yulianti teaches, participated in the 25-minute piece
supported by the music of Otto Sidharta and under the art
direction of Soni Soemarsono. Sidharta and Soemarsono graduated
from the same institute. The latter was once a disciple of
Indonesia's stage expert Raden Roedjito.

Nirkata (Without words) deals with the difficulty of
expressing intention through words. It is not choreography
burdened by a story, but rather a demonstration of ideas that try
to remind us of the necessity to re-position choreography
according to the meaning and substance of movement.

Proper control can lead to a special performance if it enjoys
the support of contributors and dancers who are capable of
predicting or developing the choreographer's ideas. In other
words, the success of the choreography is not solely the
choreographer's responsibility. There is a demand on the dancers
to give an artistic weight to the interpretation.

Soloists

Without real comprehension and with dancers more like puppets
without souls, the choreography was unexciting. An arrangement of
American and African music, taken from recordings by Mai Nozipo
and Terry Riley and played by the formidable Kronos Quartet,
became a mere guide for the counting of mechanical and verbal
movements. Furthermore, the lights were focused on the dancers
and the stage as if to justify the lighting of the performance.

Yulianti, a former official at the National Archives and a
former chairwoman of the Jakarta Arts Council, needs to recognize
or rethink her ideas and selection of dancers.

With regard to ideas, Nirkata, a piece filled with primary
colors that change in function and shading, needs to be performed
by skillful dancers who possess sensitivity and vision. Sukarji,
Wiwiek Sipala, Henry and Dewi Hafianti, were not appropriate for
Nirkata, a work that needs true soloists. Lest it become a
tragedy, the piece should be reconstructed before it is staged
again.