Megalitikum Kuantum staged to mourn Bali blast victims
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Although the mega-show, Megalitikum Kuantum, was only staged twice, it now has a life of its own and has evolved into something of a cultural institution.
It is an entity that remains so only in name while its contents are modified to meet just about any objective.
Staged for the first time on June 29 and 30 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Kompas daily newspaper, Megalitikum Kuantum was again performed in its entirety at Garuda Wisnu Kencana in Bali on Sept. 3, simply because the first show was considered a success.
There has been talk of taking the show on an overseas tour.
An official with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism earlier said the Megalitikum Kuantum, a show that mixed local pop music and near-extinct traditional music, could make a good promotional tool for Indonesian culture.
On Wednesday last week, the art performance -- in its stripped-down version -- was once again staged to show solidarity for those who perished in the recent Bali blast that killed 23 people and injured dozens of others.
Such solidarity was shown in a very Balinese way, with a performance of the traditional kecak dance.
In its original shows, Megalitikum was staged with a lineup consisting of artistes like self-appointed pop diva Krisdayanti, teen popstar Agnes Monica, dangdut singer Iyeth Bustami and scores of other pop performers.
In the show, 150 Balinese dancers who had already performed at the Garuda Wisnu Kencana show, turned in a special and mystical performance of the sacred Balinese dance.
An eerie atmosphere of gloom was palpable as dozens of dancers burst out of the darkened porch of Bentara Budaya art gallery in Palmerah Selatan, West Jakarta, to get to the center of the stage, an open space surrounded by hundreds of torches.
The atmosphere alone provided a fitting backdrop for those who had perished in the blast.
With customary kecak vocalizations, dancers made intense movements that resembled a crowd in a trance-like condition.
The dancers were indeed entranced.
The knowledgeable audience, which learned that the kecak dance had its origins in Sanghyang, an exorcism ritual in Balinese society, quickly grasped why this fraction of Megalitikum Kuantum was staged in the first place.
The ritual was held to cast away troubled spirits that had died from unnatural causes, such as the heinous bombings.
In traditional Balinese society, participation in Sanghyang is considered part of a religious obligation.
German artist Walter Spies helped to define the present form of the kecak in the late 1930s.
In the light of a possible schism between the country's Hindu and Muslim communities that could arise in the wake of the bombings, the show's organizers took the opportunity to inculcate tolerance from different believers.
The show was preceded by a dinner to break the fast and a nightly Ramadhan prayer for Muslims who made it to the performance.
With prayers being offered by believers from two different religious traditions, we were given an assurance that those who perished in the blast could now rest in peace.