Teater Garasi's 'Rain' not dry for ideas

Teater Garasi's 'Rain' not dry for ideas

Text and photo by Lauren Bain

JAKARTA (JP): When Yogyakarta-based Teater Garasi performed
its latest work Reportoar Hujan (literally "rain repertoire") in
Surakarta recently it seemed fitting that many of the audience,
this reviewer included, were caught in the rain.

Reportoar Hujan, which will be performed in Jakarta on
Tuesday, was developed over a period of more than six months, and
took as its starting point an unfinished poem by director Gunawan
Maryanto. The poem contained two key images -- a man being
caught in the rain, and a woman who waters her flowers in the
afternoon. These images became the basis of an exploration and
creation of a new kind of visual poetry in performance, a poetry
based on physicality and the dynamic between bodies in space.

Reportoar Hujan is a departure from Teater Garasi's previous
work, in that it uses a movement-based form of theater and no
text in developing it. Members of the group undertook training in
a range of performance forms including classical Javanese dance,
martial arts and butoh (a form of Japanese theater). Reportoar
Hujan is more concerned with image and symbol than with telling a
story; and it utilizes a simple (but not simplistic) design and
minimal performance space.

The collaboration between the performers and musicians (who
perform live with the show) results in a tight "soundtrack" which
becomes an essential part of the performance.

Reportoar Hujan is both very personal and universal. It does
not pretend to deal with "the big issues", and according to
director Maryanto, this is a deliberate strategy. But in dealing
with "small things" -- being caught in the rain and watering
flowers in the afternoon -- the work remains open to multiple
interpretations.

It could be read as a comment on power relations between
individuals, gender relations, or the importance of
contemplation. The decision not to use text in this piece could
also be a reflection of the alienation that some young
Indonesians feel from language, in an era when words are perhaps
increasingly void of meaning.

Because of its style, Reportoar Hujan is perhaps less
accessible than more conventional theater, but this is precisely
what makes it interesting.

The use of physical theater and a nonlinear, nonnarrative form
is, however, not new in Indonesian theater. In the late 1960s
Rendra experimented with a form which was later named teater
mini-kata (although this term is difficult to translate perhaps
literally it means "theater of minimal words"), and the 1980s and
1990s saw a resurgence in physical theater led by Jakarta-based
groups Teater SAE and Teater Kubur.

Undoubtedly, many will be reminded of Teater SAE when they see
Reportoar Hujan. However for Teater Garasi, one of the leading
younger-generation theater groups in Indonesia, this work does
represent something "new", and for a group without a clearly
definable style (not that this is necessarily a bad thing) it is
an important and successful experiment.

Performing Reportoar Hujan on Tuesday in the performance space
of The Japan Foundation's Jl. Sudirman office will present new
challenges for Teater Garasi. As the performers warmed up for
their show in a Surakarta pendopo (open terrace), audience
members could look out beyond their umbrellas, see the lightning
break over rice fields and smell the rain on rich soil. Not
likely in Jakarta.

But enough of the romanticized picture of rural Java in the
rain -- the Japan Foundation space will present Teater Garasi
with new opportunities for experimentation and thus enable new
dimensions to emerge in this work.

Teater Garasi will perform Reportoar Hujan in Jakarta at The
Japan Foundation on April 17 at 8 p.m., in Bandung at Selasar
Sunaryo on April 18, before returning to Yogyakarta to present
the work at Lembaga Indonesia Perancis on April 20 and April 21.
Inquiries at 0818 261402.

The writer is an Australian theater worker currently
undertaking research for a doctorate on Indonesian theater.