Yogya arts festival faces big challenges

Yogya arts festival faces big challenges

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post/Yogyakarta

This year, the 17th Yogyakarta Arts Festival, or FKY 2005, was held without the normal colorful pre-opener, a cultural parade along the city's busiest main street -- to the obvious relief of the many not-so-arty motorists.

Instead, a more localized but just as interesting program: Seni Trotoar (Sidewalk Arts) presented three different groups of performers on the sidewalk in front of the Gedung Agung State Palace.

Members of the Yogyakarta Chinese Art Community, Didik Nini Thowok's Natyalaksita Dance Company, and the West Kalimantan Art Community all performed to the delight of pedestrians and the honks of commuters.

"Principally, we don't want to disturb street users, especially along Jl. Malioboro," FKY XVII 2005 organizing committee chairman Bonaventura Dwi Siswanto said.

Officially opened by Yogyakarta Governor Sultan X of Yogyakarta Palace, this year, the month-long festival has Arts for the Environment as its central theme.

According to Siswanto the festival was an effort to build awareness in the public about the existence of culture in the community. Art in a civil society was user-friendly, he said, and did not hold lavish parades that inconvenienced motorists.

In its 17th year, Siwanto said the festival had recently faced greater funding challenges as it was perceived by many to be solely for the arts community and not for general consumption.

While many in the community believed a festival of the arts should cost up to Rp 1 billion to stage, this year, the FKY received Rp 300 million in funding from the local government, its highest level ever, he said.

But Siwanto stressed that budgetary and time constraints made it difficult to create something that would please everyone.

Many people had criticized previous events for their lack of professional management, he said. Often the organizing committee was formed only a few months before the event, the same problem that had occurred in this year's festival.

"This year's organizing committee was set up only one and a- half months prior to the opening, making it difficult for us to get the best results," Siwanto said.

One plus, however, was that the organizing committee would remain the same for the next four years, to allow them to build on their experience and maintain continuity in its management style and funding.

"With a longer start-time, hopefully we will have more time for the preparation of future events and fund-raising activities," fine arts coordinator Kuss Indarto said.

Siswanto said team members would also have more time to design the best programs, which were self-financing and attractive to the public.

"I do think this is the biggest challenge for us -- to make attractive programs that will drag people in," Siswanto said.

In his speech at the opening ceremony, Hamengkubuwono noted that culturally rich forms of traditional entertainment were being replaced by television programs and movies, while cafes and discotheques had taken over spaces where traditional theaters once staged plays.

To make FKY relevant, the sultan said, organizers should include the best of progressive global culture, while at the same time selectively showing off local traditional art.

"In other words, a new local culture needs to embody the new spirit of development," he said.