Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center loses its touch

Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center loses its touch

Yusuf Susilo Hartono, Contributor, Jakarta

Today, Nov. 10, the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center, better
known as TIM, in Cikini, Central Jakarta, celebrates its 33rd
anniversary.

Again, the November Festival is being held to mark the event,
featuring lectures, exhibitions and performances. The festival
will be launched on Saturday with a cultural address by Azyumardi
Azra, rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Institute for Islamic
Studies in Ciputat.

Today, TIM is not as prestigious as it used to be. There is
nothing remarkable about the festival actually. Things were
different back in the 1970s when Jakarta was still under the
governorship of Ali Sadikin. At that time, arts and cultural
events at TIM had wide repercussions for arts and cultural
circles across the country. Bright ideas about arts and culture
debated at TIM became part of a national discourse, and the echo
is still being heard today.

A few examples may serve to illustrate this point. When
Yogyakarta-based Rendra's Bengkel Teater performed Nobel laureate
Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot at TIM, the
performance became the talk of modern drama buffs across the
country.

TIM's closed theater also hosted a great discussion on the '66
Generation' in Indonesian literature.

The open theater, located behind the closed theater, large
enough to accommodate 3,000 people, was once the venue for the
revival of the folk art of Betawi, the indigenous people of
Jakarta, including Betawi folk instrumental music gambang kromong
and lenong folk theater. Thanks to such performances, these folk
art items, then on the brink of extinction, have been able to
survive to the present day.

A contemporary dance piece by Sardono W. Kusumo, called
Samgita Pancasona, was once performed at TIM's arena theater.
It was also in this theater that great names in Indonesian
literature, culture and politics, such as Rustam Effendi, Armijn
Pane, Hamka, Fuad Hassan, Mohammad Roem and Harry Aveling (then
domiciled in Malaysia) gave their lectures. Noted poets like
Taufiq Ismail, Sutardji Calzoum Bachri and even German poet Hilda
Domein read their verse here too.

The exhibition gallery next to the closed theater once hosted
a display of original graphic works by master artist Pablo
Picasso. The venue also witnessed scores of exhibitions by famous
Indonesian artists such as Affandi, Rusli, Soedjojono, Oesman
Effendi, Popo Iskandar, Zaini, Nashar, Sadali and Srihadi
Sudharsono.

In short, TIM could then be likened to a mother giving birth
to her best children, as well as being considered the home of
Indonesian artists.

Unfortunately, some of these "children" have had to leave
their home as the arena theater, closed theater, open theater,
the Huriah Adam Building, the old exhibition gallery and the art
house were all demolished around five years ago and similar
buildings have yet to be constructed to take their place. Like it
or not, these artists have now made hotels, galleries and cafes
their new homes.

The demolition of these historical arts buildings, carried out
by none other than the Jakarta administration's cultural agency
(then under Azahari Baedlawi) -- obviously with the approval of
the director of TIM's management, members of the Jakarta Arts
Council (DKJ) executive board, the Jakarta Arts Foundation (YKJ),
the Jakarta Academy and Jakarta governor -- has effectively
destroyed TIM's prestige. It was widely feared that this
demolition was actually closely linked with a plan to convert TIM
into a shopping center with the movie theater Studio 21 as the
embryo. Thank God that this fear has proven groundless.

The presence of various institutions within TIM should make it
stronger. But in reality, the existence of these institutions has
led to clashes of interests due to an absence of trust.
DKJ accused YKJ of being incapable of raising funds to finance
the events at TIM and some DKJ members went so far as to ask for
YKJ to be disbanded. Meanwhile, YKJ complained that the programs
drawn up by DKJ had few selling points.

Now that TIM is operating under a new management team,
assigned to carry out the program drawn up by DKJ, TIM employees
unfortunately spend a lot of their time gossiping about new
inexperienced people winning strategic positions. Older but
experienced employees have been moved to new posts that require
them to learn again from scratch.

TIM's anniversary is the right time for related institutions
in the arts center to reflect on and reformulate their tasks, in
a way that will promote fresh trust and enable them to work
together in harmony. The Jakarta administration's cultural
agency, which has demolished some of the buildings within TIM,
must establish new relations with TIM's recently-appointed
management team.

Slamet Sukirnanto, a poet and one-time member of DKJ's
executive board who has enjoyed great benefits from TIM, once
encouraged DKJ's secretary of the executive board Syahnagra
Ismail to "make TIM the mother of artists again and make TIM the
house of artists again." Unless efforts towards this goal are
implemented immediately, TIM will truly be abandoned for good.

While accepting this suggestion, Syahnagra said that, in
future, TIM was intent upon bringing together young artists who
displayed potential, while continuing its efforts to develop art
appreciation among school students.

Meanwhile, chairwoman of DKJ's executive board, Ratna
Riantiarno, said it was necessary for TIM to host international
events in drama, literature, dance, music and the fine arts. In
recent years, there have not been any great art or cultural
events held at TIM, partly because of the demolition of some of
its buildings. She added that DKJ was thinking of turning the
November Festival into an annual international festival in the
future.