Urban sax extravaganza highlights Art Summit opening
By C.G. Asmara
JAKARTA (JP): By 7:45 p.m. last Saturday night a sizable crowd had formed in front of the planetarium, located at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Central Jakarta. Their eyes were straining upwards, hoping to catch a glimpse of two figures clad in gold jumpsuits walking upright slowly down the globe of the planetarium, precariously supported by two other similarly dressed daredevils via a rope attached to their backs.
Suddenly there was the mournful wail of a saxophone and a spotlight flipped on revealing a saxophonist on top of a restaurant on the other side of the parking lot. Another spotlight illuminated a second saxophonist on the observatory dome and suddenly the planetarium was filled with strange saxophone "noises" and air horns. A sea of saxophonists, their faces covered with mesh and wearing metallic costumes with small colored lights, clear plastic tubing and inflated balloons fashioned into bizarre shapes, descended the central staircase of the planetarium. Giving the impression of enormous alien insects, the musicians then climbed onto two forklifts which carried them to the Graha Bhakti Budaya theater, where another saxophonist sounded his instrument from the roof while dancers created silhouettes in the third floor windows.
So began the outlandish performance of France's Urban Sax, which marked the grand opening of Art Summit Indonesia 1995, a 20-day festival bringing together top contemporary music and dance performances from nine countries.
Audience
The performance then continued inside the theater to a packed, very appreciative audience. With the curtain still drawn, a number of saxophonist appeared on the balcony, on the stage, and even suspended by a rope over the audience. A lone figure stood on the floor in front of the audience making strange semaphore- like gestures. It soon became apparent he was conductor Gilbert Artman, who was communicating with the performers aided by a headset and microphone.
The notes played by the bizarre-looking musicians were more like sounds which were carefully manipulated by precise breath control. There were very few melodic phrases. The musicians also created "blowing" sounds by forcing air through the opposite end of the saxophone and through the plastic tubing on their costumes. Other supporting instruments were kettle drums, xylophones, air horns, a bass guitar, Tibetan gongs and eerie wordless vocals.
The opening of the curtain for the second piece was nothing short of spectacular as the stage revealed a mountain of androgynous insect-like musicians (both on platforms and hung from above) enveloped in a thick fog. The set was completely covered in clear plastic, giving the impression that the performers were sometimes resting on a cloud and sometimes sinking into a pile of garbage. The special lighting effects (with instruments brought from France by the group) provided dramatic splashes of intense sutured color that added to the architectural environment of the set.
The costumes, which held no particular significance according to Artman, were chosen for their utilitarian function of providing sound through the plastic tubes and the balloon-like resonators. The metallic colored jumpsuits, admittedly too hot for Jakarta's climate, were chosen because they looked contemporary, disagreeable (like modern urban life) and were inexpensive.
The first part of the evening proceeded with a number of minimalist pieces, all vaguely similar, exploring various sounds produced by the instruments in various parts of the theater (because of portability, only the saxophonist moved offstage). The music was interpreted by two dancers who, rather unconvincingly, executed unimaginative movements and were entirely incidental to the performance and at one point were suspended on either side of the stage. The result was an exploration of the theater on two levels -- spatially and acoustically. The "music" which was repetitive and often droning, was only one element in this exploration that also included the performers, the set and the lighting.
Urban Sax, which was founded in the 1970s by Artman, has created site specific performances around the world with the result that no two venues have the same choreography or music. "I try to work in as many different architectural spaces as possible so that the audience becomes central to the sound events," explained Artman in an interview with The Jakarta Post. Each venue provides different architecture and therefore presents its own seed of possibilities. "Simply put, (an Urban Sax performance) is the transformation of a space and its possibilities into a spectacle during a specific time set aside for the performance."
To Artman, the production of "sound" by his 40-odd (pun intended) musicians is more important than the creation of music. His productions are in contrast to "static" music performances that happen in one spot on a stage in front of an audience. With sound coming at the audience from all directions, he creates an "architecture of sound" that causes the spectators to turn their heads and become aware of the space in which they are in.
The second part of the performance was a surprise for the audience and fulfilled a lifelong dream of Artman's; he had always wanted to work with Indonesian music. After a short break while the audience stayed in their seats, the curtains opened to reveal the addition of a Javanese gamelan. The Irama Kemala Jati gamelan, under the direction of Kris Basuki from the Jakarta Art Institute, played a number of pieces on their own, including Sekatan, Lancaran Degung, and Langen Branta. They were then joined by Urban Sax musicians who played an eclectic fusion of supporting sounds to the gamelan tune Landrang Pangkur as eight traditional Javanese dancers from the Jakarta Art Institute performed a piece especially choreographed for the occasion.
According to Kris Basuki, the gamelan group had prepared a cassette tape with a number of different selections of music to present to Urban Sax upon its arrival in Jakarta. Artman picked from these the pieces with which he wanted to work and incorporated the gamelan group into the performance over a period of four days. Artman expressed his joy at the opportunity to work with Irama Kemala Jati because of the subtlety of Javanese gamelan, although incorporating the two music genres was quite difficult since they rely on different musical scales.
While the idea to include a gamelan was noble, it was obviously underdeveloped as the gamelan and the dancers seemed very out of place and were only marginally integrated into the performance.
As a visual performance with its plastic and metallic costumes with little glowing lights and its plastic sets, jazzy dancers and choreographed "backup" singers, Urban Sax gave the impression of a campy, gaudy variety show. However, conceptually as an exploration of the creation of sound architecture, Urban Sax provided some food for thought as their original use of the planetarium and different spaces within the Taman Ismail Marzuki complex as well as the theater gave the spectators a new awareness (and hopefully a better appreciation) of the space around them.
Overall, Urban Sax's spectacular choreography, lighting, sets, costumes and daredevil antics provided a festive opening to Art Summit Indonesia 1995.
Ghana
Public response to the summit has been unexpectedly encouraging. One indication was strongly visible during the presentation by the Ghana Dance Ensemble on Monday. Even a downpour failed to dim the public's eagerness to see the rare performance.
After a delay of over an hour, an enthusiastic over-capacity audience pushed its way into Taman Ismail Marzuki's Teater Tertutup.
Scheduled for the large-capacity open theater, the venue had to be changed at the last moment due to unseasonable rain, which caused the delay as the lighting had to be rehung and recircuited.
Despite the holdup, a troupe -- the only African representative at the festival which boasts of 15 performances from nine countries -- gave an intense rhythmic hour-long performance, omitting one of their originally scheduled pieces to make up for lost time. They were so energetic in their dancing and drumming that at times it was breathtaking and left the audience exhausted by the end.
The Ghana Dance Ensemble (The National Dance Company) which was founded in 1962, aims to develop contemporary African dance theater and to contribute to the preservation, promotion and presentation of contemporary African dances. Headed by the former president of the International Association of Black and African Choreographers, Francis Nii-Yartey, the troupe tours to international destinations twice yearly on average, although this year they are attending six international dance festivals.
The performance was as much about music as it was about dance. The first piece, entitled Nmani, consisted of half a dozen women in bright costumes playing calabash music in choreographed unison. The calabash is a large type of gourd that, when dried and hollowed out, is used for storing and carrying water and food, as well as a drum. The second piece consisted of a solo performance on xylophone, where a smiling musician played a composition that extended beyond the conventional use of the just the keys, but also included the frame of the xylophone as well as the mallet handles. Both pieces were performed with a light- heartedness that was thoroughly contagious.
The bulk of the program was given to a piece entitled Solma which means "to tell a story". It was based on a dance from Northern Ghana and was choreographed and directed by Nii-Yartey in collaboration with French choreographer Jean Francois Duroure.
Solma was a collage of colors, sounds and rhythms. Narrative in form, it presented the everyday life of contemporary urban Ghana, beginning in the marketplace and extending across oceans and social and economic strata. It told the story of both the oppression and resilience of urban life, replete with gang members and policemen, traditional storytellers and politicians, drunkards and lovers, in an imaginative choreography that combined traditional dance and movements with innovative use of simple props and gestures to evoke complex images.
According to Nii-Yartey in an interview with the Post, he works with what he terms "movement specs of contemporary behavior" meaning that he looks at the everyday gestures of the Ghanaian people around him as material for his choreography. According to Nii-Yartey these gestures have become codified and are easily recognizable to all. He is also inspired by current events. For example, in Solma he explored the problems of street children who have become part of Ghanaian urban culture as well as part of their dance forms.
Creating a contemporary dance theater group in Ghana has not been easy. Nii-Yartey, who is "tired of seeing African dance gone in grass skirts and painted faces," feels that the so-called classics of African dance have become museum pieces and is frustrated that new dances are rarely choreographed. He comes from a traditional dance background and in the beginning found it very difficult to break away. He had to approach the idea of contemporary works very slowly, so that they would be acceptable to a society (and to a government that pays his salary) still firmly rooted in tradition.
The result of Nii-Yartey's efforts was a highly entertaining and uplifting evening despite the late start and technical difficulties. (At times the lighting was so dark that the dancers were not even visible!) Performing with only 14 out of a total of 45 members, one can only imagine how much more spectacular and impressive it might have been had the entire troupe been present.