Teater Garasi takes Tjut Nyak to summit

Teater Garasi takes Tjut Nyak to summit

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Women are a constant theme in choreographer Elly D. Lutan's work
with her community dance group, the Dedy Lutan Dance Company.
This time, she is bringing the story of Acehnese woman Tjut Nyak
to the stage.

The group will perform at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, Central
Jakarta, on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, as part of Art Summit
Indonesia 2004.

Waktu Batu is a project from Teater Garasi based on three
basic themes: time, transitions and identity.

The company is due to perform at 8 p.m. on Sept. 27 and Sept.
28 at Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki, Central Jakarta
also as part of the summit. Tickets for both presentations will
be available at Rp 20,000 and Rp 30,000.

In a statement the summit says that Tjut is a wise mother who
is never afraid of expressing her thoughts and desires. She is a
devout Muslim who is proud to be a woman; for her, being "in
front of a man" is not demeaning.

Through the story of Tjut, Elly shows her far-sighted vision,
creating art for her religion, family, community and country.

The story begins with a long war in Aceh where all the
people's houses are destroyed. The tyrant (referred to as the
kafir by the Acehnese) has caused huge destruction.

The horrors of war seep deep into the veins of this society
with evil begetting more evil and morality becoming blurred. The
people begin to ask the question: Who is the kafir here? Who
should we fight against? Is it only the tyrant or do we now have
the morality of a kafir?"

Tjut Nyak cannot stay quiet; her restlessness arouses a desire
to fight in the battlefield. She becomes an inspirational figure
who lifts the spirit of her husband and the Acehnese commanders.

The summit says that in terms of a methodological approach,
Teater Garasi's Waktu Batu performance is based on research and
reinterpretation of three texts: mythological, historical and the
problem of (constructed) modernity in Indonesian contemporary
life.

The mythological texts the company tries to reinterpret within
Waktu Batu are three Javanese mythologies about time: Watugunung,
Murwa Kala and Sudamala. They relate the origins of the Javanese
calendar, the Javanese god of time and how time is a threat in
the Javanese mind.

Meanwhile, the historical text on which the company has tried
to base Waktu Batu is a period of Javanese history ranging from
the 14th to the 15th centuries, when social and religious
transformation occurred on the mainland of Java.

By using these materials as a creative base, Waktu Batu has
tried to make a sort of anthropological trail about the
conception of time and its implications on man's social relations
in Java before colonialism brought the problems of modernity into
Indonesia.

Writing about the project the members of Teater Garasi state:
"When starting on the Waktu Batu project in August 2001, we
prepared ourselves for a long process, an ongoing process.

"That is why we called Waktu Batu a project, not a production.
Because by doing this process we weren't, and we are not, just
preparing a stage performance but, most importantly, are carrying
out research intended to trace the problem of Indonesian
(cultural) identity."