An Arts Tourist in Yogjakarta

An arts tourist in Yogyakarta Kim Dunphy, Manager , Cultural Development Network The art of the overpass in Yogyakarta: the famous monkeys from the Ramayana Ballet On leave from my day job supporting cultural development in Victoria, I took the opportunity to explore some of the arts experiences that Yogyakarta, Indonesia’s cultural capital had to offer. My brief exploration of city attractions included an enjoyable mix of traditional and contemporary arts. I begin with a visit to the famous tourist attraction, the Ramayana Ballet which is performed twice a week throughout the year against the magnificent backdrop of the famous Prambanan temples. This dance style is a curious mix of Indonesian and Indian cultures, with the Indian Ramayana story presented through traditional Javanese dance, demonstrating the considerable impact of early Hindu missionaries and traders on Indonesian culture. A highlight was the deer dance, and the enchanting fluid and flexible movements, jangly gold costumes and headdresses of the young female deer dancers. Disappointingly, the heroine of the Ramayana, Princess Shinta, doesn’t dance much at all. This is quite unlike western ballet, when the female dancers’ roles are as physically and technically demanding as the men’s. Shinta’s royal station is indicated by her complex and beautiful costume. This sarong is tied and positioned in such a way that Shinta can only make the tiniest of movements, indicative also of her tightly bound social role. Around her, the menfolk of the story, including her husband Rama (a good and bad guy), the really bad guys, and the ebullient wild monkeys of the forest, run, jump, battle, adventure and 1 move her, kidnapping and rescuing her over and over, while she stands, poses and creeps tiny steps forward and backwards, endlessly flicking her sarong out of the way to do so. One good and a bad guy from the Ramayana A curious extension of the two religious and cultural traditions brought together in the Ramayana story is the recent challenge posed by the growing Islamicisation of Indonesia. While it is not evident in the Prambanan presentation as yet, local informants explained the challenges for artists and educators in the clash between traditions of Javanese performance and costuming, and Islamic values. In Javanese dance, male dancers’ torsos, arms, and heads are often bare, like the arms, shoulders and heads of female dancers, as the movements of these body parts are a primary feature of the dance forms. In Islamic dress, as it is spreading in Indonesia, no body parts at all are shown, with the wearing of the headscarf, jilbab, a growing practice, even for young girls. Javanese costumes are being redesigned so that jilbabs can be worn underneath the head headdresses, and long sleeved shirts underneath the sarongs. It is difficult to see the advantage or growth that this new development might bring to the artform, and the performers. Despite the repressive influence of Islam, there is a burgeoning contemporary arts culture evident all over the city. Melbourne’s famous Snuff Puppets had recently been in Yogya, running workshops for artists and children, working collaboratively to create puppets and a performance over the summer holiday break. While this show was based on aspects of the traditional Ramayana story, the outcome was, not surprisingly, quite different, and participants enjoyed the opportunity to work in a new way using traditional story elements! 2 We enjoyed being escorted by some young friends to Kinoki Bar, a restaurant, bar and meeting place, that is also a centre for contemporary arts. On the night we visited it was full of vital young people, and interesting menu and two events: a live puppetry performance and an English film festival. We managed to squeeze in drinks and dinner, watching the movie Dogsville featuring Nicole Kidman and the puppet show Hanya Menunggu (Just Waiting). This short and piquant piece presented by Papermoon Puppet Theatre explored the relationship between two homeless people. The company’s director, Maria Tri Sulistyani had engineered an interesting collaboration with an international team of young artists; puppeteers and musicians from Indonesia, Mexico, France and Australia, Many of these artists had met and worked together for the first time the previous month on the project led by the Snuff Puppets. My next visit was to Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardja, Centre for Performing Arts in south Yogya, a tranquil oasis in the blaring franticness of city life. Established in 1974 as a studio space for the renowned Indonesian artist, Bagong Kussudiardja, the centre has been recently gifted to the people of the area by his family. It hosts four local arts companies, and has a beautifully set up music recording studio, dance studio and theatre spaces. Korean-American dancer Jeannie Park, and her partner, visual artist Besar Widodo have recently taken over the running of the centre and plan to explore new possibilities for it as a centre for community activism and arts participation for local communities. This is a new concept for Indonesia, whose arts education is modelled more on mastery of traditional styles and leadership by master artists, rather than the encouragement of creative exploration that is more a feature of Australian arts education. The centre sees new opportunities for itself expanding the concept of arts education through opportunities for local people and teacher training. While the centre is a haven in its architectural style, location and ambience, it is also subject to a most unfortunate and inescapable fact of life in contemporary Indonesia, the five-times daily call to prayer. Within every few blocks of the city, an enormous megaphone fixed to a high pole blasts out the call to prayer by virtue of a tinny recording. This begins every single day at 4.30 am, sometimes earlier. The centre has one positioned right beside its space, that was so loud I almost fell over when it went off as I walked past. We met a delightful young tour guide Vanie, who introduced herself as a unusual commodity in Indonesia, ‘a free thinker’, in a society where religion, with the three choices, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist, is a compulsory category on one’s identify card. Vanie had recently met up with NSW artists Keg de Souza and Zany Begg working in Yogya as part of an Asialink residency. With Vanie’s support, the artists created a short film Cities Without Maps, documenting the changes in the lives of low income kampung dwellers as a result of growing gentrification of the city. Vanie reported great enjoyment of exploring and presenting the story of her community with the Australian artists. And there was much more to experience in Yogya that I didn’t have time for; beautiful galleries of contemporary art, the traditional performances of gamelan 3 and puppetry held every day in the Royal Kraton (Palace) in the centre of the city; master wood carvers, batik and jewellery makers. I also missed by a few days, the performing arts competitions presented annually by local government as their major activity to support the cultural development of their community. ….. Another visit perhaps. Kim Dunphy Manager, Cultural Development Network August 2008 4 .

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