Performing arts 2004: Flashback to a varied year

Helly Minarti, Contributor/Jakarta

Judging from the frequency, scale and variety of events held throughout the year, 2004 seemed to be fruitful for Indonesian performing arts.

Arts festivals -- starting from the small-scale Monologue Festival up to the large Art Summit Indonesia 2004 -- were a regular feature throughout the year. However, at a closer look it raised concern about some aspects of conceptual thinking and practice that were revealed as the seasons passed by.

Art Summit Indonesia 2004

Let's start with the largest. The triennial Art Summit Indonesia international performing arts festival managed to take place on time, despite familiar funding headaches.

However, the quality of performances and event management has declined steeply, and was something of a disgrace, which raised questions about curatorial procedure and cultural policy.

Inviting more than a dozen arts groups from Indonesia and abroad to perform, the range and standard of the works presented were way below those of previous years.

Dance at the summit

In dance, for example, past years have witnessed big names such as Sankai Juku (1995), Susanne Linke (1998) and Akram Khan (2001). All subsequently established themselves as progressive figures of specific traditions in contemporary dance.

With relatively few misses, the commissioned Indonesian groups were also of the caliber and stature the festival wished to achieve.

This year's lineup was in marked contrast to the previous festival. Most of the international dance artists -- such as the French Compagnie Magali et Didier Mulleras and British Urban Classicism -- although presenting some interesting notions on dance, did not really live up to the festival's expectations.

A couple of groups grabbed the attention -- particularly the Finnish Tomi Kitti dance company and Japan's Kim Itoh + The Glorious Future, but even their stunning performances failed to cast off the shadow caused by poor programming of the festival as a whole.

The Indonesian piece, Elly Luthan's Cut Nya, Perempuan Itu (Cut Nya, That Woman), was badly received by critics.

A member of the curatorial board expressed his disillusionment at the approval of the Luthan item, as the work had been staged before (it was not specially commissioned) and personal bias in the choice of some nondance numbers was also felt to have tainted the selection process.

In addition to the stage works -- dance, music and theater -- the month-long festival this year introduced a new component: a visual arts exhibition section that drew heavily on the already- limited budget.

This caused more headaches for the festival management, partly resulting in very late promotion, which greatly affected the box office takings (no more scenes of young members of the audience queuing and fighting for seats at dance performances), problems on commissioning procedures and human resource capabilities.

Even the two-day international seminar, which was an important part of the festival, seemed to be organized amateurishly.

Thankfully, other smaller festivals took place throughout the year, partly as a result of the Jakarta Arts Council being reactivated.

Having finally resolved previous internal conflicts, the council selected new members and is now busily running its annual program, which is a good sign.

The Monologue Festival opened this year, and the Festival of Realist Theater took place toward the year-end, like a breath of fresh air.

The council also ran a competition for critical writing on the performing arts as well as a carefully curated dance showcase of young choreographers.

Indonesian Dance Festival

Meanwhile, this year's Indonesian Dance Festival (IDF), which has run since 1992 and once achieved success for its creative and initiative programming, earned mixed reviews.

They were critical of the programming (probably the worst so far), but there was a pat on the back for its sponsorship trawl (managing to attract funding from state electricity company PLN, which chipped in Rp 100 million only a couple of weeks before the festival kicked off).

The spotlight shone on its weak programming though, featuring mostly lesser known local choreographers performing immature works. Inconsistency was rife.

"Among the choreographers, some did have an interesting body of work, but for some reason, the new works they performed in the festival were not as strong as their previous. What can we say?," commented Nungki Kusumastuti, the IDF director, on an occasion of a discussion on dance at Teater Utan Kayu in October.

Japan's Butoh master Min Tanaka was the only respite, with his much-talked-about, 70-minute improvisation. "But this contrast really overshadowed the local artists' creations, and that is so sad," commented Dewi Ria Utari, a dance journalist.

The next IDF is scheduled for 2006, and the gap is meant to give a break for the organizers to reorganize themselves.

Still on dance, one special occasion needs to be noted. In August, the Gumarang Sakti Dance Company restaged Api Dalam Sekam (Fire on the Chaff), a work of the late Gusmiati Suid -- commemorating the third year of her passing.

The work originally premiered at Art Summit Indonesia 1998, then prompting controversy over whether the summit should continue in the midst of a national crisis.

Choreographer Sardono and pianist Ananda Sukarlan's collaboration seemed headed for the abyss, not only because it was performed just a couple of days after the month-long Art Summit (and the audience was supposedly overloaded by then) but also it reflected how collaboration between two artists who live far away from each other (Ananda is now based in Spain) requires good planning, which was simply not addressed.

Theater in 2004

In theater, Teater Kubur's Sirkus Anjing (Dog Circus) and Teater Garasi's Waktu Batu III (Stone Age III) became the highlight of the Art Summit.

The subsequent Festival of Realist Theater was intended to lay out a new discourse on the medium.

Outside the capital, the Solo Dance Festival went from strength to strength and with this year's Temu Koreografer Wanita (Forum for Female Choreographers) it continued to find a niche in dance, providing another alternative to Jakarta-centered dance events.

Information on the one organized in Bandung later in the year, for some reason, was not well-disseminated outside the province.

From the point of view of management, the Indonesian Arts Market in Bali proved to be another waste of resources. Such events are only relevant for countries with at least solid, working arts infrastructure.

The attempt seemed to imitate or be a response to the one initiated by Singapore in 2001 (for this part of the region), but then again, Singapore has clearly stronger reasons for holding such events.

Arts education and funding

Arts education is another matter of concern, due to its declining quality (especially in contemporary dance), plainly the result of mismanagement and almost total ignorance on the part of Jakarta's municipal government, which seems incapable of making decisions over funding.

This is very clear when it comes to the Jakarta Arts Institute, which has been outrageously neglected for years.

In the meantime, the controversial production of Robert Wilson, La Galigo, which was inspired by a Bugis epic from Makassar, kept touring the world but its overambitious use of stage technology was apparently one of the production problems it encountered.

So many things have to be done for the Indonesian performing arts, but one thing is for sure -- public involvement is still minimal.

A transparent policy and program from the Jakarta Arts Council, for example, needs to be adopted soon, as it does for the arts program funded by the Jakarta administration.

During the New Order era, desperate young artists commissioned for a project had virtually to sign away their artistic freedom and integrity.

What about now? Genuine public scrutiny should be the rule of the game.