Indonesia 1999: A cultural retrospect

Indonesia 1999: A cultural retrospect

By Edi Sedyawati

JAKARTA (JP): The year 1999 began with reverberations of what
had happened in 1998, when although entangled in an economic
crisis, Indonesia managed to organize two major international
culture events, in Jakarta.

The first was the 15th conference of the International
Association of Historians on Asia (Aug. 27 to Sept. 1, 1998), and
second, the Second Art Summit Indonesia (Performing Arts, Sept.
19 to Oct. 19th, 1998).

In a way, these two events, attended by many foreign
participants, contributed something to make a better image of the
situation in Indonesia, which otherwise was exposed by foreign
press agents as being desperately in turmoil countrywide.

Within the year 1999 itself, there were several cultural
activities worth noting, which we may recall in a combination of
classified and chronological order.

The classification would run as follows: (1) international
cooperation; (2) the world of children; (3) the promotion of
local cultural potentials; and (4) the promotion of facilitating
agents for the development of a conducive sphere for the
formation of a national culture.

Aside from all those cultural activities, 1999 also saw a
general problem of the role of culture in the development of the
nation. Social unrest in certain places, in fact, put cultural
tolerance to a test.

Artistic collaboration

The fruit of an international artistic collaboration was seen
at Teater Tanah Airku at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, in February
1999, featuring a theatrical rendering of William Shakespeare's
King Lear. Acting, music, dialog and dance, as well as costume
and stage design, were composed into an integrated whole.

What made it special was that different elements of all those
ingredients were taken from diverse stage traditions: Chinese,
Japanese, Javanese, Malay, Minangkabau and Thai.

Surprisingly, the performance was remarkably good; the
dominant feelings reverberate genuinely despite the multiple
sources of techniques. The unimpaired strength came from the fact
that all the composing and performing artists were masters in
their own right.

In March, a bilateral agreement brought about an exhibition of
Indonesian Gold from the National Museum's collection in Jakarta
to Brisbane, Australia, at the Queensland Art Gallery, and
subsequently moved to Sydney. It was hoped that the feelings of
Australian visitors who viewed the exhibition noted the cultural
refinements of Indonesia and were duly aroused. It was meant as
compensation for political and media hostilities between the two
countries.

There were, moreover, three international festivals held in
Indonesia attended by participants from many countries. The first
was the 20th Festival and Conference of Asian Composers League
held in Yogyakarta and Surakarta from Sept. 2 to Sept. 9,
organized by the Association of Indonesian Composers with the
full support of the Directorate General for Culture.

Then there was the Indonesian Dance Festival held in Jakarta,
from Sept. 16 to Sept. 21, organized jointly by Institut Kesenian
Jakarta, Dewan Kesenian Jakarta, Taman Ismail Marzuki and Gedung
Kesenian Jakarta.

Another festival attended by foreign participants was the
Makassar Forum held in Makassar, in mid-1999. The presence of
foreign participants at all those festivals, again, gave an
opportunity "to show the world" that Indonesia was not as bad as
it appeared in media coverage.

Culture for children

Another category of cultural activities is that related to
children. In February, the Directorate of Museums held an
exhibition of children's toys and games, accompanied by a
discussion and demonstrations.

This complex of activities was held in the National Museum,
Jakarta. A lot of interest from visitors was expressed, mostly
with the hope that all those children's games could be revived,
to be experienced and enjoyed by our children today.

The wish is, indeed, a challenge for educators, parents and
entrepreneurs. A seminar with the same theme, Dolanan Anak-anak
(Children's Play), was later held by the Gadjah Mada University
in Yogyakarta, on July 13.

It is worth noting that some games or plays include songs, of
course in the respective local language, and use the specific
tonal system of the local culture. Thus, learning a traditional
game will also mean learning a musical tradition at the same
time.

Enriching the musical experience of children is a problem at
hand. Besides the diatonic system, other tonal systems, such as
the pentatonic, should also be presented to children. The visual
aspect of musical presentation also needs assessment.

At present, too many TV programs feature children's video
clips in which children are made to move and dress as coquettish
adults. Therefore, the performance of music for children such as
that given by the Midori Orchestra during National Education Day
celebrations in May is something that needs to be presented more
often.

The Indonesian Wayang Week VII, held from Aug. 7 to Aug. 14 in
Jakarta (organized by the National Secretariat for Wayang, which
took place in a special venue built for wayang in the vicinity of
Taman Mini), also featured wayang Kancil, a puppet performance
telling educational fables meant for children.

Demonstrations or short performances of the many different
styles of wayang (puppets) performances from different places in
Indonesia were also welcomed as a means to develop appreciation
among the newly acquainted spectators, including children.

In October, a special Children's Theater Week was held for the
first time in Indonesia, organized by the Directorate for the
Arts, also at Taman Mini. The plays were written in Bahasa
Indonesia, but the staging allowed local interpretations. Hence,
we saw a great variety of presentation styles from all the
participating delegates from many provinces. These creatively
constructed performances, which were then observed and evaluated
by professional theater artists and experts, should be made
accessible to a wider audience.

Local potentials

On Aug. 21, a local and private art center was inaugurated. It
is called Pondok Seni Boediardjo at Tingal, a small hamlet near
the famous Borobudur temple. It is the legacy of the late air
marshal and art lover (also ex-minister and ambassador) H.
Boediardjo.

Alumni from several art academies gathered there to help the
Boediardjo family develop programs to expose local artistic
potentials, as well as to present rare traditional Javanese
performances.

For different cultural areas, a remarkable joint-festival was
organized in September and October. It was the Festival Budaya
Nusantara, coordinated by Pudentia and supported by The Ford
Foundation.

It comprised: (1) a performing arts festival at Karangasem,
Bali, organized by the Society for Indonesian Performing Arts,
from Sept. 9 to Sept. 14th; (2) a festival of Dayak rituals,
ethnography and oral language, organized by the Institute of
Dayakology in Pontianak, from Sept. 22 to Sept. 23; (3) a Malay
Culture Feast organized by the Tanjung Pinang office of the
Directorate for History and Traditional Values, from Oct. 7 to
Oct. 9; (4) a symposium on manuscript studies and an exhibition
of manuscripts at the National Library, organized by the
Association for Nusantara Manuscripts, held in Jakarta from Oct.
12 to Oct. 19; (5) a seminar, festival and book launching
organized by the Association for Oral Tradition, from Oct. 14 to
Oct. 16, at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta; and (6) a conference
on local languages organized by a joint committee, also held at
Taman Ismail Marzuki, from Oct. 14 to Oct. 19.

This integration of activities makes an exemplary work of
synergy, binding together several professional organizations,
government offices and foreign agents. Because of its dimension,
it had a demonstration effect, letting people know that many
studies and vitalization efforts regarding local traditional
cultural expressions have indeed been done from time to time.

Tolerance tested

Alas, due to inadequate socialization of intercultural
understanding (through four channels: community circles, schools,
mass media and cultural industry), cultural (and religious)
differences have been exploited for political ends to generate
conflicts and to fan fights and riots.

Expertise in understanding and tolerance is needed. It is now
high time to see that social and cultural matters are central in
problems of social welfare. It should be put as a higher
priority, at least at the same level as economic and public
facilities development.

What is urgently needed now is an integrated and well-
structured combination of efforts to fight ignorance and
intolerance of cultural differences thought all four channels
mentioned above.

The writer is the professor of archaeology at the University
of Indonesia and former director general for culture.