Cultural diversions abound in German technology expo

JAKARTA (JP): Concerts, film screenings and a photo exhibition are set to give Jakartans a look at the cultural side of Germany in conjunction with next week's Technogerma Jakarta '99.

The major industry and technology exhibition, organized by the German-Indonesian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Ekonid), is designed to enhance long-standing business ties between Indonesia and Germany.

Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen will open the weeklong cultural calendar with a concert at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Established by music students of Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, the ensemble made a name for itself with a performance at the UN in 1983. It has also been enlisted as a cultural ambassador to accompany the German president on its foreign tours.

Since its inception almost 20 years ago, it has become a leading chamber orchestra. It has regularly performed in the best known concert halls in Europe and as a guest at well-known festivals like the Tanglewood Festival, Salzburger Festspiele and Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.

Conductor Rodrigo Blumenstock and soloists Harald Schoneweg on violin and Ulrich Knig on oboe will accompany its performance here.

Gedung Kesenian Jakarta will also host the concert by bach, blech & blues chamber music for brass players on Thursday. The group is also scheduled to perform at the Jakarta Convention Center on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 5:30 p.m.

Confrontations of styles like the renaissance and avant-garde, baroque and jazz characterize the basic tenor of the ensemble. Under the auspices of the Goethe Institute, the German Music Council and the foreign office, the 12 musicians have performed extensively abroad, especially in the United States and Southeast Asia.

Among the compositions to be presented here are Intuition of Sacred Hearts, trio-jazz-version and Sinfonia La Padovana.

A presentation of the German Dance Film Institute will be held on Thursday and Friday at the Usmar Ismail film center at 7:30 p.m.

The institute, set up in 1991, is a national center for archival documentation of the dance art. It offers its services to choreographers and theater groups in the production of professional video material about their work. It also provides material to TV networks in Germany and is a valuable source of information for dance research. Its constantly updated archives currently house more than 6,000 dance documentaries.

On Thursday, Tanzland Deutschland will be screened. The 90- minute documentary film gives an overview of the stylistic developments in modern dance in Germany from the perspective of dancers and choreographers.

On Friday, there will be a screening of another documentary, Von Rudolf von Laban zu Pina Bausch, which gives an overview of the development of dance and ballet in Germany since the beginning of the century.

The screening will start with the expressionists Mary Wigman and Kurt Jooss, and continue to show the works of Rudolf von Laban and Oskar Schlemmer. It explains why antimodernism of the Nazi era put a sudden end to a fruitful and popular strain of modern dance, describes how dance gained a new but conservative foothold in the opera house after Germany's recovery in the 1950s and finally leads to Pina Bausch, the key figure of renewal in German dance in the late 1960s.

A recital by pianist Heidrun Holtmann is scheduled on Friday at 8 p.m. at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta.

Holtmann has received several awards at national and international competitions, including the first prize at the 1992 Concours Gza Anda in Zurich. Assignments followed with famous orchestras like the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra.

A silent movie accompanied by live music, Metropolis, is scheduled to be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Usmar Ismail film center.

Fritz Lang's legendary 1927 black-and-white film features Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frhlich and Heinrich George. Providing the live musical accompaniment is Aljoscha Zimmermann, pianist and professor at the College of Music in Munich.

The film -- snippets of which can be seen in the video for the old David Bowie duet with Queen Under Pressure -- is regarded by many as the ultimate achievement in silent filmmaking. The story, which culminates in a general uprising against totalitarianism, is told with a masterful balance of drama and rhythm.

On Sunday, pianist Hansjrg Koch and percussionist Slavik Stakhov will present contemporary music for percussion and piano at 8 p.m. at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta.

A photo exhibition is also organized from Monday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the lobby of the Jakarta Convention Center.

The photos are a reflection of 50 years of German postwar history, showing cities in ruin in the aftermath of World War II, black-and-white glossies from the period of economic recovery in the 1950s, scenes of public protests by students and environmental activists and the construction of the Berlin Wall and its fall more than 28 years later.

The moments are captured by three generations of one family -- Willi, Dieter and Reto Klar, respectively father, son and grandson -- from their own unique perspective.

The exhibition's daily program at the Jakarta Convention Center will also include a science show at 3 p.m. and German 2000, with a laser show, live music, a fashion show with the winners of the model contest Das Gesicht 98 (The Face 98) and game show with Twipsy, the mascot of the world exhibition EXPO 2000 in Hannover.

All events, excluding those at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, are open to the public at no charge. For further information call GKJ at 380-8283, Jakarta Convention Center at 572-6000 (www.jcc.co.id), or H. Usmar Ismail Film Center at 526-8448. (ste)