Asia Society promotes Indonesia's culture in U.S.

Asia Society promotes Indonesia's culture in U.S.

By Mehru Jaffer

NEW YORK (JP): Lovers of Indonesian culture here are waiting
anxiously for the moment when they can relive the romance they
experienced before. As the country with the largest Muslim
population in the world preoccupies itself with a facelift
appropriate for the new millennium, a little lull is to be
expected from the country's cultural emissaries.

And thus people in New York City have remained filled with
excitement and anxiety as they watch from a distance the great
changes taking place in Indonesia.

Rachel Cooper, the performing arts coordinator at New York's
Asia Society and founder of Sekar, the Balinese dance troupe
based in San Francisco, said: "The greatest challenge before us
at the moment is to figure out how to represent Indonesian
culture? How to create new opportunities, to expand our
presentations of Indonesian performing arts in the United States
and to build a wider appreciation of their richness and
diversity."

The Asia Society is America's leading institution dedicated to
fostering better understanding between Americans and the peoples
of Asia and the Pacific. Founded in 1956 on the initiative of
John D Rockefeller III, hundreds of thousands of people have
found information, insight and connections through conferences,
educational programs, publications, the Internet, performances
and art exhibitions regularly organized by the Society. The goal
is to reach at least one million people annually by the beginning
of the 21st century.

Rachel strongly feels that the multiple changes taking place
in Indonesia today should not be concentrated merely in financial
and political areas.

"It is so important for all Americans to continue to have
positive communication with Indonesia, and one way of doing this
is through an ongoing exchange of cultural activities," said the
proponent of cultural diplomacy, who feels that politics and
finance have brought little good news from Indonesia in recent
times. However, she worries that those who have provided
financial support in the past to promote cultural activities may
not be in a position to do so now.

Rachel is in the middle of organizing a Ramayana performance
for the year 2001 as part of a major performing arts festival in
New York. The participation of Indonesia hinges on whether funds
are found to make it possible for Indonesian artists to be able
to attend.

"It is for Indonesian business people and Americans doing
business in Indonesia to think of how they can continue to
generously contribute to promoting cultural events even in the
midst of major political and economic transformations," said
Rachel.

She said that almost a decade has passed since New Yorkers
witnessed the last huge festival of Indonesia in 1990-1991, when
320 Indonesian artists mesmerized audiences here.

Rachel recalls that the last festival had a powerful impact on
American audiences and the performers in turn were deeply
affected by the experience of performing in the United States,
gaining a deeper appreciation of their own art through this
recognition.

Above all, the festival forged new relationships at many
levels, inspiring the San Francisco Examiner to refer to it as
one of the most innovative events of 1991. The only reason
similar festivals have not been held more regularly is a lack of
adequate funding.

Smaller events continue to be staged. Autumn last year saw an
evening-length dance theater work that portrayed apparent
contradictions faced by non-Western artists, who are rooted in
the age-old traditions of their homeland yet seek to create
wholly new responses to their contemporary world. The work was
the result of a year-long collaboration between New York-based
choreographer Yin Mei and Indonesian composer Tony Prabowo.

Chinese dancer Yin Mei grew up in the midst of political
instability of staggering proportions, and through her dance she
tries to come to terms with the tragic killings during China's
Cultural Revolution. Similarly, Prabowo, from Malang in East
Java, is forced to find answers in music for the horrors that
took place in the "Year of Living Dangerously", when hundreds of
thousands of people were slaughtered in the chaotic aftermath of
an attempted coup in Indonesia.

Prabowo was first noticed in New York when he composed music
for the Ritual of Solomon's Children at the City's International
Festival of the Arts in 1988 and created music for the
experimental play Blurred Vision at the Theater for the New City,
New York. Today Prabowo has become a household name in New York
for the fusion of Western classical music with his traditional
approach. What Yin Mei and Prabowo find in common is their need
to explore the conflict between rigid tradition and the perceived
freedom of contemporary life.

Audiences here can't wait for Prabowo's next performance, that
will include two operas based on the lyrics of Goenawan Mohamad,
exploring the concept of evil on stage at the prestigious Lincoln
Center. The other hope is to be able to fly in at least 10
dancers from Bali for a performance by Sekar, the dance troupe
which Rachel founded 20 years ago in America.

Only until recently had Asia seemed for most Americans a world
apart: exotic, remote and sometimes explosively unstable.

"Not anymore," said Nicholas Platt, president of the Society,
adding that with a common stake in the global economy both Asians
and Americans share a strategic concern for international
stability and an abiding interest in a better understanding of
each other's values. The Asian economic crisis and its aftermath
has only reinforced the interdependence between Asia and America,
he said.

He is aware that the road toward financial recovery in Asia
could be a long one for some. But he also seems determined to
continue America's engagement in Asia not just to bring Americans
closer to Asia but also Asians closer to each other.