Pantomime show this week

JAKARTA (JP): Sena Didi Meme, Indonesia's only professional pantomime group, will perform Gangster and Your Friends at the Jakarta Art Gallery from July 21 through 23.

The theater's director, Sena A. Utoyo, promised yesterday that the group will prove that pantomime is not what Indonesian audiences generally imagine: white-masked actors doing boring mute movements on stage.

"We want to show the public that good pantomime is a lot more than that," Seno, who is also a teacher at the Jakarta Arts Institute, said.

From the 18 shows he has performed in various cities throughout Indonesia, he said, he concludes that Indonesian theater goers generally consider pantomime as a "boring classical work of art which is hard to comprehend."

In the Gangster and Your Friends, there will be a dance by ballerina Linda Karim and dialog, Seno said. (pan)