Fishermen's lives expressed in movement

Fishermen's lives expressed in movement

Blontank Poer, The Jakarta Post, Surakarta

Carrying storm lanterns, two men enter the arena from different sides. They walk slowly and stealthily in darkness.

When their figures disappear, a man hurries down the stairs of a pole standing erect behind the main stage. A commotion of voices breaks the night's silence moments after the male figure climbs up the stairs again.

From atop the pole, an instruction was given in Javanese asking the people below to prepare the fuel, the fishing net and other sailing equipment.

Two large drums appeared and the sail was stretched out. The boat sped off, disappearing into the nocturnal darkness that enveloped a vast ocean with the only light coming from twinkling stars.

This was an episode from Heri Suwanto's dance drama titled Bala Jala (Friend of the Net), which was performed in the Arena Theater of the Surakarta Cultural Park last Thursday.

It was a sad story of the little people, inspired by the lives of fishermen along the Pekalongan coast, where Heri, the choreographer, was born.

As a member of the coastal community, Heri vividly shows in his creation that he strongly sides with the fishing folk. He presented fishermen's daily lives as they are. His narrative openness makes it hard for the audience not to get an impression of his naivety in this 40-minute dance drama performance.

Although his choreographic creation was based on his observation of the lives of fishermen in the coastal area of Pekalongan, Heri includes a wider geographical scope in this creation with his inclusion in the repertoire of songs and poems from the island of Selayar to emphasize his message. In terms of voice character these songs and poems resemble the folk songs of the island of Madura.

It is generally known that fishermen from Madura and Selayar are good sailors.

These fishermen spend months at sea, no matter how rough it is, until their instinct tells them to sail to a certain spot where a school of fish await the arrival of their net. These fishermen never care where exactly they are when they net fish. They only know that there is life out there in the sea, and it is there that they earn a living and get their vitality.

While these fishermen are out at sea, their families faithfully wait at home. A small party will be held when their boats return. The sound of music, a combination of Indian and Malay tunes, will be heard almost everywhere in the villages, a sign of celebration that the fishermen have returned safely to their families.

Bala Jala seems to be an episode that continues Heri's narrative of the lives of fishermen. Seven years ago, he was also inspired by the theme of traditional sailors in his choreographic work called Gubug Penceng (Skewed Hut). With this work he earned his degree in dance from the Indonesian Dance School (STSI) in Surakarta.

Like other marginalized people in our society, fishermen also suffer because of the high price of fuel. Meanwhile, industrial waste from the cities or coastal areas has made the cost of fishing higher as fishermen must go further and further out to sea where there is less pollution. Fish are sensitive to pollutants and will swim farther away to cleaner parts of the ocean.

As a result, the fishermen's haul has become disproportionate to the costs they have to incur, especially because many fishermen have to rent fishing boats. Some fishermen's families may own their own boats but they have to rent an engine. Without such an engine they cannot sail very far out to sea and expect to get a big haul of fish. Today, if fishermen just rely on the wind and their sails, they will return home empty-handed.

It is true that there is a very interesting element in the lives of fishermen in the creation of a choreographic work. However, there will be something amiss in this work if the choreographer fails to carefully interpret the reality of a fisherman's life in the symbolic language manifested in the artistic arrangement and property of the stage.

The presence of a large drum and a pole plus sail on the stage in this Bala Jala performance filled Heri's work with verbal symbols accentuating the realistic nature of the play. Meanwhile, some scenes in this performance showed, instead, a tendency to surrealist movement and color.

Another criticism is that in the scene depicting the deep longing of fishermen's families left back home, four female dancers hurriedly carry used tins of baby milk. It is rather strange that the haul obtained from a few days fishing is paralleled with children's need for milk.

At the close of the performance, two oil-drilling bits fall from the sky, marking the beginning of a huge oil exploration project financed by a big capitalist. When this happens, the fishermen are puzzled and become powerless. They are unable to resist.

It was a ridiculous scene because oil drilling is usually conducted far offshore and does not always directly affect such fishermen.

If only Heri, who has participated in the works of famous choreographers like Sardono W. Kusumo and Retno Maruti, had shown more patience and given more thought to his exploration of the theme Bala Jala, it could have been much better than Gubug Penceng, his previous work that examines the interaction between man and the ocean.

Another weakness in this work was Heri's tendency to show off techniques of movement. Unfortunately, the types of movement that he presented in Bala Jala were relatively limited.

As a result, despite Heri's flexible narrative style, much time was wasted because of an apparent urge to show off dancing techniques.

The variety of movement was very limited. The movement that he put into his choreographic work was "highly academic" in the sense that it involved back movement techniques with very little development. The performance could have been much better if only the dancers had shown a similar level of ability and mastery. Some of the dancers did not even seem to understand the concept of choreography, with their expression being artificial and dull.