'A Touch of Color': Sex workers tell tale
'A Touch of Color': Sex workers tell tale
JAKARTA (JP): ...Ow, hues color my eyeswhich have been
blinded by the beauty of love or lust masked with love.Darling,
I give you everything,ut why isn't your shadow in the
clouds?...
The lines are from the poem Love written by Gita, a commercial
sex worker in the famous Kramat Tunggak red-light district in
North Jakarta.
Gita's poem was read last night during a one-night musical
performance called A Touch of Color at the Taman Ismail Marzuki
Arts Center (TIM) in Central Jakarta.
The show was organized by the Kusuma Buana Foundation, a non-
governmental organization, in cooperation with AIDS information
dissemination volunteers and some Jakartan artists.
Gita and around 30 of the foundation's 115 commercial sex
workers, the foundation's term to differentiate from independent
prostitutes, performed the musical to raise the public's
awareness of AIDS.
The Rp 29-million (US$12,888) production was written by Joshua
D. Pandelaki and produced by Baby Jim Aditya, who is also a
member of the noted Teater Koma. Baby co-directed the play with
O'han Adiputra.
"Usually actors need to observe red-light districts to be able
to interpret life in a red-light district. But this time the
story is being presented by those who work there," Baby
explained, adding that much hard work went into their acting
training.
Most are only primary and junior high school graduates, Baby
said, and teaching them to sing That's what friends are for for
the play was quite an effort.
"They can't read English, so I Indonesianized the lyrics to
help their pronunciation."
The title A touch of color was chosen after Baby spent some
time socializing with commercial sex workers.
Life in a red-light district is not only black and white, Baby
said, there is a lot of color. Our aim is to inform people that
commercial sex workers can also act as disseminators of AIDS
information, he added.
Harry Purnama of the Indonesian Family Planning Center
commented that the producers also want people to understand that
commercial sex workers are also human beings, that there is no
discrimination in fighting against AIDS. Commercial sex workers
are involved to help them have more confidence on themselves as
human beings.
In addition to the Kramat Tunggak commercial sex workers,
children from the Street Children AIDS Rescue Group and members
of Jakarta's gay community also performed a variety of musical
numbers.
A public information session on AIDS was also held at TIM's
Graha Bhakti Budaya building yesterday. (als)