Melati Suryodarmo
Interview by Mark Rappolt
Performing to Resist
60 ArtReview Asia Born in Solo, a historic royal capital of Java, back to my hometown, Solo. The studio is just Melati Suryodarmo has, over the past decade, a house I rent, but it has a 5,000sqm garden with established a reputation as one of Southeast a lot of thick trees. I built an open-air platform Asia’s leading performance artists. She is stage with very simple rigging for the lights. particularly feted for her durational works, We organise Undisclosed Territory, an annual which might involve crushing and grinding festival of performance art, and host a ‘labora- hundreds of kilograms of charcoal over a tory’ for performance art, as well as a ‘dance 12-hour period (I’m a ghost in my own house, 2012) laboratory’ for young choreographers in the or dancing on butter until she collapses and region. Every two months, we support young leaves, exhausted (Exergie – Butter Dance, 2000). choreographers or composers who develop per- For almost 20 years she lived and worked formances for a small theatre in collaboration in Germany. While her performances cross with the art centre. It’s all very simple. But cultures, her body, and by extension the I need to do this, and as long as it’s still possi- female body, remain a constant. This month ble to do it in Indonesia, I’m going to continue. she opens a major solo exhibition at Museum I love it, it’s totally independent. , Jakarta. Is this in response to the fact that there aren’t such spaces in Indonesia in general?
What’s it been like to develop the They don’t teach performance art here. exhibition for ? The institutions are limited, so I love the idea of supporting an ecosystem of performance art We’ve been working and independent artists. In doing so, I under- on it for three months and I feel a constant déjà stand what is happening in my surroundings. vu. Seeing all the objects and the documentation I think artists cannot be separated from the art again, and trying to remember what happened community, the art environment. If you don’t at those times in my life. It’s like performing my support your environment, you become more archive: although some of those performances alienated from that society. will be performed by others, and some I’ll pre- facing page Transaction of Hollows (2016): sent myself. Dressed in a white suit, the artist notches a bamboo arrow into a gendawa (tradi- Do you have to go into training to do those, or do Suryodarmo obtained a degree in interna- tional Javanese bow) and shoots it into you just take the condition you’re in as a given? tional relations at Padjajaran University the gallery wall. She repeats this action in Indonesia before moving to Germany in 800 times over four hours. There are various methods of training. 1994, where she studied under Butoh dancer For a long durational performance that lasts Lilith Performance Studio, Anzu Furukawa and later Marina Abramovic, Malmö, 2016. Photo: Petter Petterson 12 hours, I really need at least two or three days graduating with a masters in performance of total quietness, but also physical space, and art from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste physical training for endurance. This show Braunschweig in 2002. This shift to dance includes a very tough piece called The Black and performance isn’t without precedence: Ball [first performed in 2005 at the Van Gogh Suryodarmo’s mother was a practitioner Museum, Amsterdam], where I sit in a chair of traditional Javanese dance. Her father, for eight hours a day for four days. The chair Suprapto Suryodarmo, was a dance artist is installed up on the wall more than two and choreographer who founded the Lemah metres from the floor. That’s it. No move- Putih art centre in central Java and taught ment, no nothing. That will be challenging dance for over five decades, developing his own for me to do again. Not a challenge in the method of freeform movement called Amerta. sense of The Guinness Book of Records of course, but I’m afraid that people will consider it that way. In Indonesia they love that sort of thing. You mentioned earlier that your work is a form But I guess people will mostly think, ‘Why of resistance – resistance against what? do you torture yourself by doing this?’ The idea of using the body as my main Why do you torture yourself by doing this? medium is about presenting the life aspect It’s not torture, it’s a resistance. My faith of the person who is making the art. I like in performance art derives from the spirit the idea that the artwork is a ‘lifework’. It’s of resistance. Even after more than 20 years not like the conventional performing arts. of practising performance art – starting in the This is not acting or dance. When I move, underground scene in Berlin, and now perform- it’s not necessarily choreographed. ing in museums, galleries, art fairs – I still do But is it still related to choreography? grassroots activities in my hometown. Initially I was going back and forth between Germany It’s slightly di®erent. Maybe seven decades and Indonesia. Then, in 2012, I decided to move ago, during the boom of performance art, it was
Spring 2020 61 facing page, top Exergie – Butter Dance (2000): like that, but not now. Now we have a totally exhibitions within the Singapore Art Museum The artist walks into a space, heading di®erent environment with the addition of and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; towards 20 bricks of butter that are the digital world in visual art, where everything the exhibition at Museum is her first prepared on a square dance mat. She stands with her back to the public. looks super-high-pixel and hyperreal. I’m not institutional solo exhibition. She turns around and steps on the butter. scared of this, but we need more energy that is She dances and lets herself fall over if she direct. I think there is a space for the artist and slips on the butter. The artist gets up and the audience to experience something that is You use traditional forms and engage with continues to dance. This action is repeated revealed at that time and in that space, impres- tradition in your work. Is that to change them until she loses her energy. It takes around 20 minutes. The artist takes o® her shoes, sions that are left in the memory of the audience or to respect them? stands up slowly and leaves the space. and the performer themselves that are very For me, tradition has the potential for trans- subtle and very specific. It’s not like a self- VideoBrasil, São Paulo, 2005 (first formation. Tradition has a quality of change healing experience or anything. I hate that performed at Hebbel Theater, Berlin, and exchange. To see tradition as a solid form is 2000). Photo: Isabel Matthaeus – performance of self-healing is not my thing. not correct. Institutions love to make traditions Never? fixed things. But take Javanese dance: many of the traditional Javanese dances have no author. Never. Maybe the only time was for The facing page, bottom Sweet Dreams Sweet There are specific dances that are created for the Promise performance [2002, Landesvertretungs- (2013): Performers in white outfits arrive palace, mostly by the king. But most of the art is in pairs, walk, sit and lie down in the haus Niedersachsen, Berlin], when I was created anonymously. There’s no original creator performance area. They dip their feet into thinking about the subject of femininity and because the dances also change over time. liquid that dyes their stockings blue. Over of my mother, who su®ered from cancer – but two hours, 28 female performers gradu- I love the idea of how traditions are main- then I thought, many people su®er from cancer ally occupy the performance area. tained, but also how traditions can change. too. I try not to present my private stories in Jakarta Biennale, 2013. Traditional knowledge is so rich. I’m slowly my performances. I let go of my personal back- Photo: Sayekti Lawu realising how rich, for example, Javanese ground. Because in many cases, these lead to mysticism is. works that are whiny: ‘I’m a su®ering female, so I scream, and I want to fight for my rights, Were you interested in that connection, and that overleaf, left I Love You (2007): For so I open my shirt and go naked’. I’m a bit grounding within Javanese culture, when you decided between three and six hours, the artist worried about this method. Of course, people to go to Europe? moves around an entirely red perfor- can express these sentiments in whatever way mance area holding onto a sheet of glass My dad had a big influence on me. He (90 × 200 × 1 cm). She repeats the phrase they like, but it’s just not my way. was an artist who developed his own method ‘I love you’. She describes this as a mantra that, ‘depending on the recipients, the A lot of your work concerns gender and the role of dance and movement. He didn’t just create meaning of the phrase becomes blurred. of women. Do you feel like you have to moderate that dance for the stage, but dance for the people. Language is expressed, but it is sometimes for a local audience? He would do di®erent kinds of ritual perfor- not representative of what we think. Our mances, but the way he did it is, of course, capability of using language is limited.’ Yes. I think I need to learn more about very di®erent to what I do now, because he was the history of gender relations in our society. Ebent07 Festival, Barcelona, 2007. self-taught. He really learned from nature and For example, I often fought with my late Photo: Angel Vila he studied philosophy. It’s a totally di®erent father, criticising him as a ‘soft Javanese’, for approach, but the idea of connecting us with being macho, or a patriarch – this kind of thing. the ground, with reality, with nature, is very And he would say, ‘Why do you accuse me inspiring to me. I think to get closer to the of such things? I have not learned from my human, our human reality, we also need to parents how to be a man, or how to di®erently learn from nature. What I know from Java is respect women. I thought I already respected that there’s a lot of local knowledge of nature. women, but that is still wrong today.’ And not just nature in the sense of the envi- “Performance is not Then I realised, of course, his environment ronmental context, but also knowledge of was di®erent, his background was traditional an individual experience, the human body, of health, death, birth, tra- Javanese, and they treat and respect women it’s a shared collective experi- ditional medicine and even cooking. A lot di®erently. It cannot be an immediate change. of those knowledge systems are being lost, ence. A performance should And that little example relates to how I see because we’re not using them anymore. be able to be perceived from things in terms of what is private or self- healing, and performance. Performance is not Is it di©cult, given what you’ve described many perspectives. I think an individual experience, it’s a shared collective as the contemporary reality of Solo, to bring some that’s why it will always experience. A performance should be able to of the contemporary performance techniques that be perceived from many perspectives. I think you developed in Europe to your hometown? be interesting” that’s why it will always be interesting. No, because I never claim the elements of traditions per se. For example, I did some research in Makassar, South Sulawesi, where Suryodarmo has performed extensively over I met a fifth gender (bissu) shaman in the Bugis the past three decades in galleries, institutions tradition. Bissu are intersex people; a documen- and festivals, including the 50th Venice tary about it will also be presented in the exhi- Biennale (2003), Manifesta 7 (2008) and
62 ArtReview Asia Spring 2020 63 64 65 66 ArtReview Asia bition. I was curious about the shamanistic go to di®erent masters of Butoh, they explain preceding pages, right The Black Ball (2005): practice, but I was mainly there to understand Butoh totally di®erently. Inspired by Egon Schiele’s Organic Movement of Chair and Jug (1912), the meaning of emptiness as a state of mind. Butoh was a movement from Asia after a drawing in which a chair and jug There’s a lot of exposure now on gender iden- the Second World War that consciously tried are captured midfall, Suryodarmo tity, but while I was researching, the gender to resist both tradition and Western influ- sits on a chair attached two-and-a-half context came to me later, when I connected it ence. It’s a fluid way of seeking a new form, metres up a wall. Below the chair is a with the Bugis’ spiritual concept of emptiness. and that’s also present in performance art. shelf covered with Astroturf, designed by Marina Abramovic. For eight to ten The shaman, who is considered the conduit I think Butoh is very strong, but I don’t hours a day, for four days, the artist sits between the people and a higher spirit, is a believe that Butoh belongs to Japan only. on the chair holding a black rubber ball. person who is totally free of gender identity. Butoh should be open to everyone, because She says, ‘I am compiling all the silent I still cannot describe this shaman, who I really, it has already spread since the 1950s. You moments I have ever experienced in my really adored. We became friends. They showed cannot stop the flow. life, especially those when I felt fear or loss. I approach the closest path, the most everything to me, they were very generous. You said you’re inspired by the history of art sensitive line, between my body and the They passed away already in 2011. There was in Europe and the West as well as from Asia. Do undiscovered landscape of my psycho- a special connection, and I try to be careful logical experiences. I am listening to you think that people in Indonesia see you as more not to expose or exploit that culture. my silence, focusing on its darkness.’ of a Western artist? I’ve been practising Javanese meditation Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2005. since I was teenager, but for me, I have some Yes, probably. They probably still see me as Photo: Oliver Blomeier natural connection with the Bugis of South very Western-influenced, but I have had a Western Sulawesi. I don’t understand the language, education. I had seven years studying in Germany. and I don’t want to exoticise the culture. I cannot avoid the influence of the West, and for facing page, top Why let the chicken run? I don’t buy into exotic or cultural tourism. me it doesn’t matter, because since my early prac- (2001): Asked by curator Jens Ho®mann It’s a method of ethics, and that matters tice during the late 1990s, I’ve tried to avoid the to reflect on the history of performance to me, as that culture is part of Indonesia. politics of representation. Because there are so art, Suryodarmo drew from many di®erent positions to take: shall we talk Ana Mendieta’s filmed performance Would you feel the same way, or the same Untitled (Death of a Chicken) (1972), about how the United Nations divided us after sense of responsibility, about something that was in which Mendieta shakes the blood the Second World War? How about the Eastern not part of Indonesia, like Butoh dance or these other from a decapitated white chicken onto bloc and Western bloc? What is the meaning of her naked body. Instead Suryodarmo, cultural forms? being part of the Third World countries? wearing heels and a black dress, Butoh is often misunderstood. Butoh I was aware early enough, maybe because sets a black rooster loose in the gallery, and gives chase. is very connected with its Japanese roots, I studied international politics before. I was aware but as a form it’s also influenced by Mary of where I put myself as Melati Suryodarmo, Â Institute, Berlin, 2001. Photo: Roland Runge Wigman, the German expressionist dancer ‘Indonesian artist’. And that if I am an ‘Indone- and choreographer. The spirit of Butoh can sian artist’, do I have to represent the Indonesian go anywhere. It can go in any form, actually, identity in terms of culture and art? And what because the spirit of Butoh is not just ‘the does it mean to be a ‘representative’ of Indone- facing page, bottom dance of darkness’, it means grufti [German sian culture and art in the international art An Afternoon with Powang Matoa Haji Saidi (still), 2020 slang for gothic] dance. It’s the darkness of world? It’s so much pressure. Art needs free- Japanese tradition – Zen Buddhism. It’s about dom. And if the world is not free, then freedom the darkness before we know something. begins in your work and your thinking. Free- Butoh is a means of reaching a kind of dom begins in the mind, not from the deter- all images Courtesy the artist enlightenment. Enlightenment not in terms mination of what kind of identity is attached of nirvana but of understanding. There are to my skin. ara di®erent understandings about Butoh as a form of dance and Butoh as a bodily perfor- Why Let the Chicken Run? features 12 mance. The complexity of Butoh is that there selected performances by Melati Suryodarmo are so many theories that are made up by and is on show at Museum , Jakarta, Western historians or researchers. But if you through 31 May
“To see tradition as a solid form is not correct. Institutions love to make traditions fixed things. But take Javanese dance: many of the tradi- tional Javanese dances have no author. There’s no original creator because the dances also change over time”
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