'Transformator' is encounter of dance and spirituality

By Emilie Sueur

JAKARTA (JP): Spirituality was in the air on the stage of the Gedung Kesenian Jakarta on Friday thanks to the dancers of the Cilay Dance Theater.

The troupe was created by Muhamad Ichlas, popularly known as Cilay. Born in 1957 in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, Cilay is the eldest son of the late Hoeriah Adam, one of the most famous Indonesian dance experts.

His family environment led him to artistic studies. Thus he turned to traditional dance and music courses at Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia (ASKI), the academy of traditional arts in Padang.

Ichlas' work appears to be a bridge between tradition and modernity. Transformator, the dance performed at the playhouse, is the direct outcome of the encounter of modern concepts and the traditional Minangkabau art of West Sumatra.

Cilay explained that traditional Minangkabau art still existed in all the parts of life as it covers both the religious and the profane aspects. He said he draws spiritual powers from the traditions.

Spiritual powers are dual just as human beings are ambivalent. Cilay believes that everybody has positive and negative sides. But he emphasized that negative and positive should not be confused with good and bad criterion.

"Spirituality is not a kind of trance you could achieve thanks to Ecstasy," he quipped. The essence of spiritual powers, Cilay asserted, lies in the natural world, and a person draws them from the inner self.

"Spiritual powers are like positive and negative ions", Cilay said. Just as ions are atoms that bear electrical charges, spiritual powers are the source of the creation of energy.

The core of Cilay's philosophy -- "spiritual powers give the energy to live the reality" -- is that tradition and spiritual powers help tackle everyday life. They provide energy to adapt to modernization.

Cilay's aim is to create new concepts suitable for modernity from the energy provided by tradition. Dance is his way to express those new concepts.

Essence

Dance is definitely the essence and the fuel of his life. Talking with the composer is a delight, akin to attending a personal performance.

He does not speak just with his mouth. His whole body expresses ideas. His eyes, arms and speech are a dance. Cilay completely fills the space around him and absorbs the listener in his sphere of energy.

His compositions, like him, fill the space. The performers dance in the air, on the floor and with any element of the stage.

This was obvious in the first piece Coda. Everyday life is set up by a soundtrack of yawning, flushing and tooth-brushing noises. The choreography was impressive as the dancer, endowed with an extraordinarily supple body, crawled on and under the wooden bed.

On the other side of the stage, four people spread around a table performed a jerky dance that engendered an ambience of stress.

The atmosphere changed drastically in Ambek. The audience could not but be charmed by the bewitching couple of dancers, who seemed to appear straight out of a dream in their white costumes.

Their mesmerizing dance made of body contact, separation, parallelism and interlacing symbolized the various feelings between a man and a woman, from love to devotion or sacrifice.

After an interval, the stage curtains opened on the gloomy scene of Species II. Seven people, wearing black suits and hoods, stood on the dark stage, ropes around their necks.

Although the rope was loose, nobody tried to take it away but simply suffocated as they moaned. It evoked the passivity of those who allow others to stifle new ideas and freedom of expression.

The final piece, Transformator, was inspired by the traditional dance Ulu Ambek from Padang Pariaman regency in West Sumatra.

To percussion music composed by Cilay, the dancers interpreted different characters. The old were represented by a shaking dancer surrounded by vigorous ones dancing with lit torches.

The visual aspect due to costumes, lights and shades was particularly enthralling.

More than a simple dance performance, Transformator was a real theatrical dance representation. Though it was contemporary dance -- a qualifier which might frighten those unfamiliar with the discipline -- it was completely accessible to everybody.

The essence of the performance is in the explanation as the bridge between tradition and modernity.

Transformator is also a way to master the energy born from the ambivalent aspect of human beings. The performance transmitted a magnetizing energy to the audience.

Cilay asserted that dancing is a way for him to master his inner energy. "Before, I was hot-tempered. Dance is my yoga, it calms me and gives me serenity."

The audience understood after the performance that this sense of well-being through dance was communicative, too.