TUK still leads the way in free thought

TUK still leads the way in free thought

By Charlie Stevens

JAKARTA (JP): Three years ago, the Indonesian intellectual and
arts community was struggling for survival under a cloud of
censorship and government control. There was very little support
for the arts and definitely no encouragement for free thought or
broad-minded artistic expression.

Into this hostile environment was born the Teater Utan Kayu
(TUK), the intellectual lovechild of a group of jilted free-
thinkers collaborating for the benefit of press freedom in
Indonesia and grouped under the Institute of Information
Dissemination Studies (ISAI), which was initiated by Tempo senior
editor Goenawan Mohamad.

On Aug. 9, TUK will celebrate its three year anniversary,
which is a poignant time to toast the courage and invaluable
idealism of the Komunitas (Community) Utan Kayu.

When the weekly news magazine Tempo was banned by Soeharto in
June 1994, a number of the magazine's journalists -- including
Goenawan Mohamad, Bambang Bujono, Fikri Jufri and S. Prinka --
along with art critics such as Jim Supangkat, Nirwan Dewanto,
Asikin Hasan and several others established a center where
artistic and intellectual activities could be pursued in a
supportive and independent network. The community was initially
comprised of three institutions; ISAI, the Kalam literary journal
and the Lontar Gallery.

"ISAI was an underground publishing and media watch
organization," said Sitok Srengenge, literature and theater
curator at TUK. "During the Soeharto regime we would have spies
and police coming in all the time. There was intelligence all
over the place and because of that Goenawan decided to open a
theater so that it seemed like an artistic place rather than
political."

"So, the theater came after the gallery and the publishing
organization and then came the library, that's how the whole
community started up," said Rayya Makarim, film curator at TUK.

Under the Soeharto regime, everything and everyone was subject
to the brutal censorship policies of the now defunct department
of information. Ironically, this only served to strengthen the
resolve of a certain sector of the arts community and by pushing
them underground fostered a greater sense of solidarity and
artistic courage.

"The whole idea behind this center was that some things never
die and one of those things is the arts," said Rayya, who began
working at TUK three years ago after graduating from film school
in upstate New York.

With the fall of the Soeharto regime and the ushering in of a
new reformist government, the climate has certainly freshened up
a great deal in terms of censorship and free expression. This is
not to say, however, that the Indonesian art world is suddenly
flourishing after so many years of stifling control.

Sitok pointed to two major problems in the Indonesian art
world today. Traditional performances are dying out and have less
relevance for people in these rapidly changing times, and modern
art is still too new and unfamiliar to be completely grasped and
appreciated by the public. This leaves a cultural vacuum into
which falls all kinds of ineffectual art and cultural debris,
resulting in a mainstream art world that is floundering and
directionless.

There are a number of popular cultural centers in Jakarta,
such as Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Center (TIM) and Gedung
Kesenian Jakarta. These centers, however, partly receive funding
and guidance from the government and inevitably sponsorship
becomes a means for the government to determine what is and what
is not seen by the art-going public in Jakarta.

"In terms of censorship, the country has opened up a lot since
the Soeharto era but this sponsorship is still used as a means
for the government to control the arts," said Sitok.

"The big difference between TUK and other centers is that at
places like TIM you have to pay to get in, it's much more
commercial and there is a lot of control. Here we focus on
quality which is the only requirement. And the artists don't have
to pay to have their work shown. In fact, we pay them," said
Rayya.

"Take, for example, film," she said. "If we just depend on
what we get at the cinemas we wouldn't be able to see so much
good material. There is something outside of Hollywood and there
is a history to all of the films that are around now.

"We've had films and performances that are really shocking.
We've shown films like The Last Temptation of Christ, The Year of
Living Dangerously and Schindler's List which are all banned
films here," she said.

"Today we have a new kind of censorship," said Sitok. "It's
not so much from the government but from certain Islamic groups
and from society. The strong religious presence prevents many
things from being shown, such as wayang for example, which goes
against the idea of a single god. The same thing happens with
certain traditional dances that are seen as erotic, such as
jaipong traditional dance from West Java or tayub from East Java.
We can facilitate these performances so that people can get used
to them and hopefully come to accept them."

One of the Komunitas Utan Kayu's current projects is to
develop six other cultural communities outside of Jakarta -- in
Medan (North Sumatra), Tasik Malaya (West Java), Semarang,
Surakarta in Central Java, Yogyakarta and Denpasar in Bali. As a
response to the restrictions placed on the art world by a
relatively new religious fundamentalism, the six cultural centers
will continue to uphold the Utan Kayu community's policy of free
expression.

"In these smaller cities there are not so many opportunities
to see modern art or films. We had the idea, for example, to show
broad-minded Islamic films," said Rayya.

The Komunitas Utan Kayu's status as one of Jakarta's only
truly independent and alternative venues offering high quality
and refreshingly challenging material has meant that it is a
popular site for students, activists, independent journalists,
intellectuals and religious groups to gather, watch, or just sit
in the Tempo Cafe scratching their chins and nodding in
enthusiasm.

"We were the first community but there are other places like
TUK who are also very active. But at a certain point they
couldn't move forward so we took over that role," said Sitok.

The Teater Utan Kayu is celebrating its third birthday
Wednesday with a party that will undoubtedly feature a lot of
socially challenged artists and intellectuals as well as a jazz
band, some great food and lashings of exotic free thought.