Summit to offer wide variety of contemporary arts
Summit to offer wide variety of contemporary arts
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite Thursday's bombing at the Australian Embassy, the Jakarta Art Summit 2004, featuring local and international artistes, will be going ahead. It will explore various aspects of contemporary performance, with a particular focus on the visual arts during the month-long event.
Chairman of the festival's artistic board Putu Wijaya remains optimistic about prospects for the summit. "This is not the first time that something like this has occurred in Jakarta, so we're hoping that neither artistes nor audiences will be deterred from coming," he said.
The 4th Art Summit Indonesia 2004 International Festival on Contemporary Performing & Visual Arts, under the banner Creativity for Tolerance and Peace, is scheduled to run at Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki; Gedung Kesenian Jakarta and Galeri Nasional Indonesia (all in Central Jakarta), from Sept. 11 to Oct. 10.
Fifteen internationally renowned groups will offer dance, music and theater performances, while paintings, sculpture, photographs and installation pieces will provide much of visual interest.
This time, some 25 noted visual artists, both local and international figures, will display their work during this year's festival at Galeri Nasional Indonesia in Central Jakarta.
An international seminar on performing and visual arts will also be held from Sept. 12 to Sept. 14 at Treva Hotel, Central Jakarta. The seminar will highlight various issues, from dance, music, theater and visual arts, with both local and foreign artists and experts listed as speakers.
The festival has reportedly received Rp 2 billion (US4216,000) in financial support from the government, Rp 1 billion less than in 2001.
The organizing committee has provided more space for innovatory multimedia art at this year's festival, such as a performance by Magali & Didier Mulleras Dance Company of France that will blend dance, images and multimedia in their show.
Contemporary performance will also be evident in Robert Hylton-Urban Classicism, which promises to deliver an eclectic mix of jazz dance, hip-hop, high-kicking capoeira as well as contemporary and classical dance.
The theme of women's issues will be highlighted by choreographers Elly Luthan in her piece on the plight of Acehnese women, and Hartati, who is scheduled to stage The Self Rites: Ode for Woman, which reflects on women's bargaining power in the uneasy ground between traditionalism and modernism.
Putu observed that the summits thus far were a kind of work in progress, with the range of artistic expression being widened each time. "Maybe, in the next devlopment, film will be included," he said.