Art summit hoped to offer ideas for local artists' growth
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.