Art summit hoped to offer ideas for local artists' growth

JAKARTA (JP): Culture vultures have a feast in store beginning on Monday, with the month-long Art Summit Indonesia featuring prominent local and international contemporary performing artists.

It's a tempting menu on offer, which includes six local artists, from veteran ballet dancer-choreographer Farida Oetojo, Nano Riantiarno's Teater Koma to young Rachman Sabur and his theater group Payung Hitam, who will participate in the third Arts Summit Indonesia to be staged at the three venues of Plaza Senayan, the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) arts center and Gedung Kesenian Jakarta.

Foreign groups scheduled to perform include Australian physical theater troupe Strange Fruit, which opens the summit at 8 p.m. on Monday at Plaza Senayan, Guangdong Modern Dance of China, musician Trio Braam of the Netherlands and Tarantula Hypertext O'rchestra of Italy.

Local artists hailed the government's consistency in staging the arts event, which had its inaugural performance in 1995 and has been held every three years since.

"The performing arts featured in Art Summit Indonesia represent the highest quality on the world stage. The Japanese and French groups which performed in the last two events were remarkable. Hopefully, this year's groups will not have less quality than the earlier performances," said renowned painter, performing artist and writer Danarto on Friday.

He said the foreign artists provided a contrast with their local peers.

"The performing arts presented by the international artists draw on universal issues, while our performing arts basically draws on the social and political condition (in Indonesia)," he said.

Dancer Sardono Waluyo Kusumo said the summit would help the younger artists tune in the world's contemporary artistic developments.

"The arts summit is where we can observe the process and experiences of artists and their new creations. Payung Hitam theater group from Bandung represents the younger generation, which have an opportunity to perform along side its predecessors, like Farida Oetojo and Boi G. Sakti, who represent the older generation.

"We feature both our generations of artists and not only the old faces," said Sardono, who is also deputy of the event's artistic committee.

However, he warned that efforts must be made to ensure that quality is maintained when hosting an international event. He said that the Graha Bhakti Budaya theater at TIM was no longer suitable for hosting world-class performances.

"The infrastructure development is neglected. For example, the government's subsidy to TIM has never increased. If the performances are improving, they also need a better venue to perform. The government pays little attention to the development of TIM.

"The Jakarta administration must take the initiative in renovating TIM if they want to maintain their prestige," he said.

Female artist Ratna Sarumpaet voiced the same concern.

"We want to become an arts center, but we don't have a good theater for the art summit. We only have two theater buildings for about 200 million Indonesians. This is a neglected priority," she said.