TV to boost appreciation of traditional art, music

By Sri Wahyuni

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Traditional art is often perceived as boring and old-fashioned by many, regardless of the fact that its beauty and cultural value is highly acknowledged.

Such a fact has seemingly annoyed people who see that traditional art deserves the same appreciation as modern and popular art. Moving of from their annoyance, eight institutions, who have grouped themselves as Kelompok Delapan (Group of Eight), are working toward the improvement of public appreciation for traditional art, especially ethnic music and performing arts.

They carry out programs periodically, and one such program is a workshop on ethnic performing art programs for television.

The workshop, which started last week and ends on Friday, is being attended by 40 participants, representing the country's six TV stations and individual art experts.

"It is indeed not an easy task to lift traditional music and art so that they can be appreciated as highly as popular and modern arts," said Fred Wibowo of Yogyakarta Cathecetical Center's Audio Visual Studio.

The studio is one of the eight members of the Group of Eight. The others are Yogyakarta Geronimo radio station, Yogyakarta- based Eksponen magazine, Suara Surabaya radio station, the Indonesian Performing Art Community (MSPI), the Komseni public relations group, the Ford Foundation and France Internationalle radio station.

The Rp 200-million workshop is the first conducted by the group on television programs. Among the speakers are Ishadi SK, former director general of Radio, Television and Film at the Ministry of Information, who was also a director of the state television station TVRI and private station TPI, and Bokir, an entertainer of Betawi traditional performing art.

According to Fred, the main goal the group wants to realize through the program is to make Indonesian television Indonesian, not American or even global.

"I'm not saying that there should be no programs of global or international interest at all, but Indonesian television stations should have something specific, something that is very Indonesian," Fred said.

He added that one of the ways to do so is by providing the audience with qualified and attractive traditional art programs.

That's why, said Fred, the workshop was designed in such a way, so that after attending the program, the participants are expected to be able to produce ready-to-broadcast ethnic programs which are not just informative, but qualified and attractive as well.

The participants are divided into several groups and within a month, each group, which consists of TV crews and an art expert as an advisor, are obliged to make five model ethnic art television programs and five other programs, which are ready to broadcast. All are produced in the Cathecetical Center's Audio Visual Studio in Sinduharjo village, Sleman, some 15 kilometers north of here.

The traditional performing art to be produced includes Betawi Lenong, Javanese Wayang Orang, Yogyakartan Angguk, East Javanese Gandrung Banyuwangi and Central Javanese Lengger Banyumasan. The production is scheduled for Dec. 2 to Dec. 7. The artists and the musical instruments are all provided by the workshop's steering committee.

Last month, the Group of Eight also conducted similar workshops in Jakarta and in Yogyakarta for radio stations.

In Yogyakarta, the workshop was attended by 11 people from radio stations and six ethnomusicologists from the eastern part of Indonesia. American ethnomusicologist Philip Yampolski, who has produced 20 compact disc records of 20 different types of Indonesian ethnic music, was also present.

"The purpose of the workshop is to give the participants knowledge, as well as field practice, in producing ethnic programs which are attractive to listeners," Errol Jonathans of Suara Surabaya radio broadcasting station, who was also the workshop's steering committee coordinator, said.

The Group of Eight has conducted a series of workshops on ethnic music radio programing since 1996 but it was only last month that it held the workshop on ethnic music radio recording. The lack of recordings, both on compact discs and cassettes, of Indonesian ethnic music to be broadcast has motivated the group to hold the workshop.

"Through such a workshop we hope that all the attending radio stations will be able to produce their own ethnic music programs which hopefully could win the listeners' interest. By doing so, they will not be dependent on market supply," Errol said.

For next year, the group has planned on conducting four similar programs. By the end of next year, the group expects to include in the program 120 radio stations all over the country, or 20 percent of the total number of the country's commercial radio stations.

"If each station can produce just one single recording for its ethnic music program, there will be at least 120 new recordings a month. Then you can count how many they can produce in a year, can't you?" Errol asked.

In this case, each radio station is not only expected to broadcast its own local ethnic music but other region's traditional music as well. By doing so, it is hoped that there will be eventually a cross-cultural understanding among different ethnic communities all across the country, which in turn will also improve the sense of unity among various Indonesian ethnic societies.

The result, according to Errol, was satisfying so far as there is growing interest among the listeners. Radio stations considered successful in conducting ethnic music programs include Palangkaraya's Ozonindo, Payakumbuh's Haran Megantara, Ujungpandang's Bharata, Denpasar's Yudha and Jakarta's Ben's.

"Some of them even have listeners' clubs who are not only curiously listening to the on-air ethnic music programs broadcast by the stations, but they periodically organize their own off-air (on stage) traditional music performance," said Errol.

Fred Wibowo said that the Group of Eight has a bigger mission "to build an audio visual data base of Indonesian ethnic art, both in the form of a library and literature, which people all over the world can access. He said the group planned to accomplish this mission within five years.