Festival gives arena to all
Festival gives arena to all
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
As the sun passed overhead into afternoon on Saturday, hundreds
of people swarmed Jl. Sumenep in Menteng, Central Jakarta, to
enjoy the two-day Street Art Festival.
Feature performances offered mostly street bands singing
original songs about the poor, injustice and other thematic
renditions of their lives, with key messages regarding
globalization.
"The event provides space for artists, some of them street
musicians, to perform. We also want to do an anti-globalization
campaign," said Botol, a member of the Nurani Senja underground
community of Jakarta, which organized the festival.
The occasion provided participating artists with an
opportunity to perform and sell products, from self-made T-shirts
to indie records, as well as to mingle with their counterparts
from the provinces.
Punklung, a six-member group featuring the calung, a Sundanese
bamboo instrument, found the cheapest bus route available and
traveled for four hours from Bandung to Jakarta to the gathering.
"We don't expect to make any money by performing here, but it
would be great if we could go home by train, as it is more
comfortable," Punklung musician Gembok said with a grin.
"Where are we staying tonight? Well, we haven't thought about
that. We may not sleep at all," fellow musician Ua said.
Other underground artists traveled from farther away,
including Bali, Makassar in South Sulawesi and Medan in North
Sumatra, paying their own way to make the event, as the
organizers did not have a budget for travel expenses.
The festival even drew the likes of Duta, frontman of noted
pop group Sheila on 7, who dropped by as a visitor.
"Welcome Duta. Will you perform? Please, join us, but watch
out for your wallet," the master of ceremony joked.
Leaving the street musicians and artists to bask in the
spotlight, Duta simply smiled and watched the performances.
"We provide basic stalls for free to those who want to sell
their crafts here," Botol said.
He added that the festival, which last took place in 1999, was
sponsored mainly by the Institute for Global Justice (IGJ), and
was organized jointly by IGJ, the Urban Poor Consortium,
Yogyakarta-based arts and culture organization Taring Padi and
Nurani Senja.