Dancer Linda Hoemar reaches her star

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): The New Yorker, not a magazine given to indiscriminate praise, raved about her.

Following a performance, audiences have been known to pass a half hour hollering for an encore. For Linda Hoemar, perhaps Indonesia's most famous dancer overseas, standing ovations are almost second nature.

Second only to dance, her first love. "It was just a dream I've had since I was little," the 29 year-old sighs when explaining why she pursued a career in dance.

Linda's dream has certainly come true. At 21 years old, after two years studying at New York's world-famous Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Linda became the youngest member of Elisa Monte Dance company. After only five months with the international troupe, she danced a solo at Cannes -- at the behest of Elisa Monte herself. For the next six years, Linda's life would revolve around playing the lead in performances around the world.

And though a normal day consisted of up to 12 hours of training and rehearsals, and eating occasionally became a luxury, Linda never felt she missed out on a normal life.

"It was so exciting at the time, I felt like I was living up to (TV show) Fame! To be a dancer in New York was all I ever wanted," said Linda.

The work she loved took her restless feet to places much more thrilling than a singles bar. "Imagine, I was in Warsaw when they had their first elections. I was in East Berlin just three days after reunification!," Linda gushed.

Resting feet

But after a quarter century of dancing -- she began ballet lessons in Germany at three years old and continued dancing into her teens under Farida Oetojo at her Sumber Cipta dance school -- Linda's restless feet are resting.

Two years ago, she quit Elisa Monte Dance Company to finish her master's in arts administration from Columbia University. Aside from performing last year at Jakarta's International Dance Festival before an awestruck audience, Linda no longer dances.

"I still do my exercises, but just for conditioning, for myself," she said. The lack of good dance schools and stages in Indonesia, said Linda, would frustrate any continuation of a professional dance career here.

Doesn't she miss that which she loved for so long? Not really, she said, especially not the strain of dieting and training.

"I miss the traveling, but do I miss the physical hard work? No! Looking back, I think how did I do that?," she laughed, remembering the Sundays spent eating only popcorn in dread of Monday morning weigh-ins.

Her two years studying at Alvin Ailey on a scholarship from the Asian Cultural Council, said Linda, were particularly grueling, although it taught her the challenge of competition.

"I had to be at class by 8 a.m. and dance until 10 p.m. It was so competitive, everybody was so driven. There were 70 students in my year, and by the end there were only six," she said.

The competitiveness followed her at Elisa Monte, who went against her own custom by not only hiring the young Linda but giving her leading roles. Ever modest, Linda explains her fortune as beginners' luck.

"She never said why (she trusted me with major roles), she just liked my dancing," said Linda.

Less magnanimous were her envious colleagues. Yet Linda, exercising a surface calm seldom seen in someone so young, faced the peer rivalry with typical grace and unwielding determination. "(The competitiveness) did make me a better dancer, but sometimes the others' jealousy made me feel uneasy too. It was a small company, you know, only nine dancers."

Laurels falling upon a striking young woman so generous with her smile should surprise few -- except maybe Linda, who eventually came to value her work beyond her own pleasure. She began to feel her dancing also raised Indonesia's name.

"In the beginning it was a personal mission. But when I started touring the world, I started to feel like an ambassador of Indonesia because people would always ask me about Indonesia," she said.

Linda heard Indonesia calling in other ways, too. "I always knew I would come back here."

Outreach

It is this certainty that has led Linda back to Jakarta, where she is working as an arts administrator for the Triangle Art Program, a cross-cultural exchange scheme run by the Rockefeller Foundation. Currently, Linda is organizing six artists from three countries -- Indonesia, Japan, and the U.S. -- for a roundtable discussion on arts and tourism management.

The result of the exchange? Insight rather than exhibition, says Linda. "We're not aiming for an end product. It's a process."

Comprehending each other's as well as one's own culture, and promoting it all the while, seems to be Linda's new passion.

"I want to be a bridge between the artists, the audience, the government, and the corporations," she said.

Although there have been positive developments in recent years, Linda added, Indonesia's arts scene needs a good boost. And the boost doesn't just mean making better art.

"You can blame packaging and production, but you also need to nurture the audience. The way you market the arts here, it's too product-oriented instead of market-oriented," she said.

What Linda wants is for the arts to reach people outside of the cultural elite. Building an audience for the future can start with Outreach programs, bringing kids to theaters for matinee dances and lectures, "so they can develop their appreciation," said Linda. "It would be too brief for the kids to be influenced by just one experience but it's a start".

If she doesn't drag the country's youngsters to the theater, she said, they will just watch TV or go to the malls. "Malls are free, cheap entertainment, and often the art activities offered here are too heavy," she said. "If the artists want to compete with the MTV bombardment, they have to package the art smarter without lessening the quality."

Yet Linda also acknowledges the discrepancies between Western concepts of art and performance, and local traditions which still do not separate performance from ritual. "Yes, maybe going to Taman Ismail Marzuki is part of Western culture. Maybe it's more natural for people to listen to artists at home, in familiar settings. Maybe we can't charge people for shows."

This means, however, that the arts need even more funding, something she can help to lobby for. She knows it will not be easy, especially compared to her experiences in the U.S.

"I studied non-profit management, and there tax breaks give people incentives to give money to arts foundations," she explained.

Those rules do not apply to Indonesia. "Here, what's in it for them? Why should they give money?," asked Linda.

Linda is determined to try, however, even if it involves going through the telephone book to get people to see performances. "I haven't tried it, but it's worth a try," she said with a glint in her eye. It is probably the same glint that sparkled audiences around the world, and judging by the steel will which it accompanies, it will likely take her to whatever she sets out to achieve.