'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)