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.