Art Summit Indonesia sees a wide variety of explorations

Art Summit Indonesia sees a wide variety of explorations

By C.G. Asmara

JAKARTA (JP): The second half of Art Summit Indonesia:
International Festival on Contemporary Music and Dance has seen a
wide variety of explorations into the meaning of contemporary
performance. Two main currents have emerged over the course of
the festival: those choreographers and composers who draw
inspiration from their own traditional cultures and the
traditional cultures of others to create new works, and those who
focus on the exploration of new and unique movements, sounds and
compositions.

Two dance groups strongly rooted in traditional cultures were
presented by Sardono W. Kusumo (Sept. 29 and 30) and Bagong
Kussudiardja (Oct. 10 and 11), both from Indonesia. These two
choreographers, who were classically trained in Javanese dance
and are well known in the Indonesian dance world, have produced
numerous new works that draw from the many cultures throughout
Indonesia. However, their most recent performances refer to the
traditional dance genres of their native Java. Although they were
both inspired by Javanese traditions, their individual
choreographic styles and interpretations produced different
results.

Sardono's Opera Diponegoro, follows the inner journey and
outer struggles of Prince Diponegoro who led the popular
resistance to Dutch colonialism during what has become known as
the Diponegoro War from 1825 to 1830. Epic in scope, Sardono's
piece attempts to assimilate a number of historical accounts of
the events including various versions of the Diponegoro
Chronicles, daily records, painting iconography and arrest
reports with a narrative dance choreography that also includes
sections of spoken dialogue such as a comic scene about villagers
protesting land disputes.

Like the traditional Javanese performances of wayang wong and
kethoprak, which serve as inspiration, Sardono's production of
Opera Diponegoro straddles the border between dance and theater.

However, unlike the traditional genres, Opera Diponegoro is
not a comfortable blend. Vacillating between the two performance
genres, the production lacks an overall conviction that allows
the audience to relax and be swept along by the images on stage.
This lack of conviction is apparent not only in the structure of
the performance, but also in the dancers' movements as well as in
the roles Sardono plays in the performance. His three roles as
himself as choreographer, as the painter Raden Saleh and as a
narrator of the events are not clearly defined and leaves one
baffled as to exactly when he is playing which role and what
point of view he is trying to get across.

Perhaps the power and the beauty of the opening scene, where a
full-stage reproduction of Raden Saleh's painting Penangkapan
Diponegoro (Diponegoro's Arrest) by M. Effendi (Studio 41) slowly
becomes transparent to reveal several dancers depicting a scene
of colonialism's brutalities, sets a standard too strong for the
rest of the performance. The grandeur and sheer number of the
figures as well as the larger-than-life emotions depicted in the
painting are almost impossible to compete with during the ensuing
two hours of the performance. That is not to say that there
aren't sections of arresting and innovative choreography in Opera
Diponegoro, like a lone figure being whipped by colonial
tormentors into a convulsive fury; four figures draped in white
costumes (by Indonesian clothing designer Biyan) who begin the
ecstatic swirl of Sufi dancers while hitting large drums placed
on the floor with their long scarves; or scenes of war with the
dancers carrying long thin flexible poles that whirl overhead.

But the performance on Sept. 29 in Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman
Ismail Marzuki, was an uneven juxtaposition of unconnected scenes
of which some appeared more developed than others partly due to
the dancers general lack of stage presence and apparent lack of
confidence in their technical abilities that may have been solved
by a longer rehearsal period and a clearer overall concept.

By contrast, the first piece of Bagong's program at Gedung
Kesenian was simple, almost sparse in comparison and clearly
demonstrated the technical mastery of his dancers over the
choreography.

Entitled Semar, the piece is an abstract rendering of the
multifaceted personality of Semar, the beloved wayang character
who is at once both a servant and a god. Based on the symbolic
classical Javanese dance Bedhoyo, that is performed by nine
female dancers, Bagong's free interpretation features four male
and five female dancers dressed in white and accompanied by a
gamelan featuring various themes and compositions associated with
Semar.

While much of the interpretation of Semar's character is lost
on a non-Javanese speaking audience that can't understand the
accompanying text, it is apparent that the simple, clear and
often beautifully symmetrical movements of the dancers correspond
to the sung poetry.

His second piece, Lelakon, is even more freely based on
traditional Javanese dance, yet still strongly rooted in it and
other traditional forms from other parts of Indonesia. As a
reflection of the process of life, Lelakon features a loosely
narrative composition that depicts scenes of conflict and love,
desire and competition, power and powerlessness. Colorful,
energetic, at times overly exuberant, this piece is in sharp
contrast to the first. As with Semar, Bagong's choreography in
Lelakon works best when it is meticulously detailed and
synchronized as are the codified movements of classical Javanese
dance such as an erotic scene of four women who, with flowing
arms and graceful hands, arch forward and backwards on the floor
accompanied by a tapestry of voices reciting Javanese tembang
(poetry) rather than the chaotic running on and offstage that
also makes up sections of the composition.

This past week has also brought two highly acclaimed
choreographers: Kazuo Ohno who, at 89 years of age, is the oldest
and perhaps best known dancer of the Japanese dance form butoh;
and Richard Alston, who heads the Richard Alston Dance Company
that was formed in 1994 in England. Unlike their Indonesian
colleagues, these two choreographers did not draw from any kind
of traditional performance in their work, although one could
argue that they are both strongly influenced by ballet which,
normally called classical, could be considered a western
traditional dance genre.

On October 7 and 8 at Gedung Kesenian, Kazuo Ohno, performing
with his son Yoshito Ohno, presented a 70-minute program entitled
Water Lilies. It first premiered in 1987 at the World Theater
Festival in Stuttgart. Although based on Nymphea, Monet's
impressionist depiction of water lilies painted when he was
elderly and had failing eyesight, Ohno has not explicitly used
Monet's images in his dance composition. Rather, as he explains,
"With Monet's help, I will find what lies at the locus of earth
and cosmos; the water lilies."

Broken down into seven sections (A Woman Floating in Halley's
Comet; Is this Flower a Baby, a Youth, or an Old Man; The Bridge
of Heaven; A Crash of Thunder; Unfinished Thoughts; Pollen of
Life; and Morning Feeling) both father and son dance a kind of
haunting, grotesque ballet. Wearing the typical white face
associated with butoh, the Japanese contemporary dance created in
the late 1950's by Tatsumi Hijikata with whom Ohno began working
in 1956, the duo appears dressed as both men and women in graying
and decomposing costumes from a bygone era. At times it was hard
to tell if Kazuo Ohno, with his large white hands and impossibly
long fingers, was purposely acting old and gnarled as if in an
advanced state of decay, or whether his venerable age was truly
catching up with him.

Unlike his acclaimed 1993 New York performance of Ka Cho Fu
Getsu (Flowers-Birds-Wind-Moon), this Jakarta performance of
Water Lilies had none of its lyricism and almost childlike
lightheartedness nor any of its energy. It had none of the
sculptural qualities or even disturbing nature of the Festival's
other butoh group, Sankai Juku. Rather, Water Lilies seemed to
totter along with no apparent direction. This vagueness was not
helped by the fact that there were no program booklets handed out
(a rare happening for an event cosponsored by the usually
information-rich Japan Foundation) and that the official Festival
program booklet listed the wrong piece. It was a disappointment
for those looking forward to seeing such a great master of butoh.

However, there is nothing vague about the powerful gestures of
the Richard Alston Dance Company, who performed on Oct. 7 and 8
at Taman Ismail Marzuki. Technically superb, this group expertly
performed three pieces including Richard Alston's landmark work,
Rainbow Bandits.

While the company's exuberant body extensions and lifts were
beautifully executed and made good choreographic use of the
available space, this piece, which was originally performed in
1977, seemed dated and out of place in a festival of contemporary
music and dance where most other groups have performed pieces
that were choreographed much more recently.The final piece of the
evening, Sometimes I Wonder (Stardust) variations on a classic
song, which was especially created for their Southeast Asian tour
this October, is a jazzy interpretation of one of the most
popular American songs of the 20th century.

At times using motives and choreography reminiscent of
Broadway musicals, this piece represents very little change
stylistically from Alston's work 18 years ago. However, certain
dancers are allowed to come forward with their own personal style
of movement, a marked difference from the lack of individuality
that the dancers possess in the other two pieces included in the
program.

The four choreographers from Indonesia, Japan and England,
each representing their own styles, strengths and weaknesses,
have made important contributions to the rich tapestry of
contemporary dance that has made up Art Summit Indonesia 1995.