Theater empowers and educates

Theater empowers and educates

Zora Rahman, Contributor, Jakarta

"If you want to change Indonesia, you have to go to the
theater."

The wise words from famous late theater director Wahyu
Sihombing found fertile ground in Lena Simanjuntak, and the
advice changed her life.

Initially planning to study fine arts, the ambitious young
Simanjuntak ended up becoming the first female student of theater
directing at the Institute of Arts in Jakarta (IKJ) in 1975,
after she met the director.

It was not an easy decision for the eldest daughter of an army
officer then. Theater -- especially for girls -- was not yet seen
as a respected profession, so her family was not very pleased
about her choice.

Simanjuntak had to find a way to pursue her goal without her
parents' financial and moral support. And she made it.

Born in Bandung in 1957 and given a real Batak soul,
Simanjuntak is one of those powerful women of whom one has to ask
from where their energy comes. The actor and theater director,
human rights activist, housewife and mother is an extremely busy
woman.

Defending human rights and fighting for the abolition of
discrimination against the minority is her childhood passion.

As children of a military family, Simanjuntak and her seven
sisters and brothers grew up moving from one region to another
throughout Indonesia.

One thing that she will never forget was the time when the
family was posted to Makassar, South Sulawesi, in the middle of
the 1960s. They lived near a prison, where they could her
detainees cry for mercy.

"Maybe this is why I became what I am today," says
Simanjuntak, whose highest value is humanity.

Although she never finished her studies at IKJ, because she
got married to a German documentary filmmaker in 1979 and moved
abroad for almost 25 years, Simanjuntak keeps in mind the words
of her former mentor, Sihombing.

Having been involved in different independent theater groups
and communities, she has had enough experience to cultivate her
own concept of art.

"Art should not only be for art's sake any more," she says
passionately. "Theater has to become a medium for education and
empowerment of the people."

In 1999, the German-based director got the chance to prove her
theory in praxis. Two theater projects in Indonesia asked for her
help in the same year: one with female farmers and workers from
North Sumatra, the other with prostitutes from Surabaya's red-
light districts. Both were meant to empower the situation of the
involved groups.

By talking about their everyday problems on stage, the women
were not only given a public voice but also obtained new self-
understanding.

"Initially, the Sumatra farmers did not have the courage to
speak in front of a few people," Simanjuntak says. "By being
actors, they become public speakers. This is a kind of education
in the basics of democracy."

Both projects became success stories and are performed every
year. Recently, they were performed in Jakarta and other cities.

"This is very much their own achievement," says Simanjuntak,
who always emphasizes that she is not the director but only a
consultant to the theater groups.

"They learn from of their own mistakes and so do I in the
course of our collective work."

But even if theater groups continue their work on their own,
they still need Simanjuntak's advice. So the mother of two
daughters, one still at high school, permanently commutes
between Germany, where her family lives, and Indonesia every few
months.

And she does it with full commitment: She lives, eats, sleeps
and travels with the community members -- be it in the farmers'
huts or in Surabaya's brothels.

"I need this live-in approach so that I can feel and see these
women's real-life experiences," Simanjuntak says.

Sometimes, when she is tired, she will go back to her old
hobby: painting.

"By painting, I can calm down and rediscover myself. It's a
good way of taking a break from my collective work," she says.

Her newest project is Gerhana dan Gerhana (Eclipse and
Eclipse) which is Simanjuntak's third collaboration with Hotline
Surabaya, a foundation that works to improve the health and
welfare of commercial sex workers.

The story is about illegal trafficking of women from villages
in East Java, a problem most of the actors have experienced for
themselves.

Not everybody understands this kind of work. Simanjuntak often
has to face accusations that, for example, she advocates
prostitution.

"I do not agree at all with prostitution. But I prefer working
with real prostitutes and not 'political prostitutes',"
Simanjuntak says.

"In my opinion it is the prostitutes themselves who are most
competent to talk about the problem of prostitution. By the same
token, only farmers and workers can speak in the name of farmers
and workers."