'Kidhung Kunthi' tells mothers' hardships

By Sri Wahyuni

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Kunthi is endlessly praying and weeping, hoping that God can stop a duel between her two beloved sons Arjuna and Karna.

But their fates are inevitable. One of them must die in the battle. Arjuna of the Pandawa family and Karna, who represents the devilish Kurawa, are symbols of good and evil. Arjuna must win and Karna must be killed; that is the way the story should go.

Kunthi cannot help but protest to the Gods over the unbearable agony of loosing her son Karna. This is a scene from the new dance Kidhung Kunti (the Hymn of Kunti) by noted choreographer Martinus Miroto, 36.

Miroto performed Kidhung Kunthi and the three other pieces, Incarnation (l992), A Section of Flowers on the Trash Heap (l998) and Penumbra (l995), in several Japanese cities, including Kyoto, Okinawa, Hyogo, Fukuoka and Osaka, from Nov. 8 to Nov. 25.

Miroto composed Kidhung Kunti especially for tour of Japan. The dance, based on the Mahabharata epic Karna Thinandhing, (the fight of Karna), tells of the duel between Arjuna and Karna during the Bharatayudha war.

In the Mahabharata epic, Kunthi is a respectable woman, the wife of the late king Pandu and the mother of the famous Pandawa knights -- Yudhistira, Bima and Arjuna. She is also the stepmother of the Pandawa twin brothers Nakula and Sadewa.

Karna is also one of Kunthi's sons, but he has never received the recognition of his mother.

Despite her best efforts to keep her two sons from the deadly fight, Kunthi cannot prevent their fates. One of them will likely die in the duel, which Kunthi cannot bear the thought of.

"My latest work portrays the current situation in our country. The fight symbolizes the chaotic conditions and the threat of disintegration Indonesia is now facing," Miroto said.

Kidhung Kunthi reflects his deep concern and love of the suffering Indonesia, added Miroto.

In this composition, Miroto deliberately employs a rambling plot to portray chaos. Cleverly, he employs traditional music instruments like the rebab (Javanese two-stringed cello), bamboo flutes and zither to produce mournful and melancholic sounds as his background music.

In the dance, Miroto successfully blends Western and traditional Javanese elements. He frames Javanese music, ritual and costumes in Western dance.

In one of the composition's scenes, Kunthi performs the ruwatan (purification ritual) wearing white clothes to symbolize her purity. The ritual is also performed as an effort by the mother to keep her children from bad luck.

Traditionally, Karna Thinanding is performed for at least nine hours and involves hundreds of dancers, 30 gamelan musicians and a huge stage. Miroto condensed this into 20 minutes, three musicians and four dancers.

Kunthi has the central role in the performance. It is through her songs that the audience is able to grasp the message of the story.

In her songs, Kunthi eloquently expresses her grief to God over the agony she must face.

"The dance symbolically depicts this uncertain and hopeless situation," Miroto said.

Miroto is renowned for his ability to blend tradition and modernity in his dance choreographies. For him, tradition is a bottomless well with multiple interpretations.

He began dancing when he was seven years old. He learned classical Javanese dances from famous dancers like the late Sasmitadipura and Sunartomo. From Bagong Kussudiardja and Sardono W. Kusumo, Miroto studied modern and contemporary dance.

Miroto began working as a choreographer in l979 and so far has composed about 32 dances. His first piece was Dora Sembada (White Lies), which has been performed both in Indonesia and abroad.

He graduated from the Yogyakarta Arts Institutes (ISI) with honors and was invited to perform one of his works, Sampah (Garbage), at the Festival of Young Choreographers in Jakarta in l986.

Miroto, now a lecturer at ISI Yogyakarta, earned a scholarship to the Goethe Institute to study modern dance at Malou Airaudo's Folkwang School and Pina Bausch's Wuppertal Dance Theater in Germany for five months.

Miroto was invited in 1992 to participate in the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina. The following year, he took part in a series of performances in Europe and the United States, dancing the character of "the messenger" in Peter Sellars' The Persian.

Miroto received his Master of Fine Art degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1995. During his stay in the United States, Miroto choreographed the solo pieces Incarnation (1992) and Penumbra (1995).

"I feel enthusiastic when performing my works in front of foreign audiences. It teaches me a lot about how to communicate my works properly to audiences with a different cultural background," Miroto said.