Indonesia Arts
Sriwijaya Festival: Palembang, Sumatra
The principal city of South Sumatra is Palembang and is a large metropolis of nearly two million people. But don’t let that deter you. It is a vibrant old city steeped in culture and tradition. Although it started a few days ago, there is still plenty of time to visit the Sriwijaya Festival held each year in Palembang, South Sumatra. The aim of this annual festival is to preserve and promote the ancient culture of the region by bringing history. This is done through a programme of performances, exhibitions and activities. The festival is one that is well worth seeing and also includes events added of a more up-to-date theme like speed boat races on the spectacular Musi River which runs through the centre of the city and is a main transport hub. The week-long festival includes live musical performances, traditional and contemporary arts performances and storytelling from bygone days. The ancient Sumatran Kingdom of Sriwijaya was an important cultural and trade centre during the 13th century and through this festival its historical importance is shown in many forms.
Date: June 19th, 2008 |
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Dina Oktaviani: The Lost Biography
City lights picked me up/and we tried to forget all the things/that had shredded the solitude back in that room//we may never understand/why old calendars/could change history/as easily and quickly as a highway rush
How do you feel after reading the lines above? How would you feel if you were told that the verse, an excerpt from a poem titled Silent Calendars, was written by a 15 year old? Dina Oktaviani composed it in February 2001. She had never before submitted her work to a national publication, but a year after Silent Calendars was written, Media Indonesia decided to print it in its Sunday edition, along with her other poems.
Date: May 30th, 2008 |
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Indonesians in Focus: Didik Nini Thowok
People usually look down on buskers or roadside performers, assuming they are too lazy to work and are content earning a few pennies on the street. But not Didik Nini Thowok, who believes busking can actually serve as a way to preserve cultural traditions and even attract tourists. Born in Temanggung, Central Java, the 54-year-old man said a group of traditional artists had recently been given a space to busk in the city center, on Jl. Malioboro. “Busking can become one of the ways to develop Yogyakarta as a culture-based tourist city,” said Didik. “But this activity has to be supported by all parties, since most groups of traditional artists are not financially secure,” he said. Didik said he believed that regular shows by traditional art groups would help both the artists and local cultures survive. He added busking by artistic groups could also become a powerful attraction for tourists, especially foreign visitors.
Date: May 23rd, 2008 |
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Indonesians in Focus: Sofiah Peni Carito
These days, women can take on roles that were once thought to be the domain of men — be it as the country’s president, a political head, a minister or the leader of a musical group. But in the art of shadow puppetry, women still usually only feature only as a pesinden; a singer who accompanies the live gamelan orchestra. However, some women have broken traditional conventions by taking on the principal position of puppet master — like Sofiah Peni Carito, from Pringtutul village, Rawakele sub-district, in Kebumen Regency, Central Java.
Date: May 15th, 2008 |
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Indonesians in Focus: Tam Chen Siong
Tam Chen Siong, 36, an Indonesian of Chinese descent who is also known as Kanjeng Raden Tumenggung Hartonodiningrat, has enjoyed success in his efforts to preserve one of the country’s most treasured forms of cultural art. Tam’s father, Tam Hwa Seng, a businessman from Surabaya, and mother Phun Djoei Hing, hoped their second child would carry on the family freight business. If that ambition could not be achieved, they hoped he would at least follow in the footsteps of his grandfather; an architect who was involved in a number of projects in Surabaya. Tam, who earned a technical engineering degree from Petra Christian University in Surabaya in 1992, however, chose to become a master craftsman of kris (a wavy-bladed Javanese dagger).
Date: May 2nd, 2008 |
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Indonesians in Focus: Ki Purbo Asmoro
The warrior Bima circles his enemy. With a resounding bang of the gamelan, the fighter of ancient Javanese folklore spreads his arms and deals a final blow, vanquishing his opponent to death. On the spread of white cloth, the shadow of only one figure remains. The intensity of this shadow puppet, or wayang, scene being played out seems at first to be at odds with the atmosphere of the room it is being rehearsed in. Some 18 gamelan instruments crowd the practice space, as do the musicians playing them, the singers, dozens of wayang puppets heaped in two piles at the front of the room, and the man responsible for the entire ensemble — Ki Purbo Asmoro.
Date: June 11th, 2008 |
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Batik – an Intangible Heritage Wonder
Batik is a popular decorated textile but for Javanese, it means much more — it embodies a philosophy that holds importance from the cradle to the grave. It is still a common practice to wrap newborns in batik cloth, and a piece of batik selendang (scarf) is regularly used to carry the baby around. When someone dies, batik will cover the body of the deceased and seven pieces of batik are usually used to cushion the corpse. At this time, batik with a parang rusak pattern or a bird design are not supposed to be used. The values represented in Indonesian batik are considered significant enough by advocates to push the government to nominate it for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s list of intangible cultural heritage, which will be first inscripted in September 2009.
Date: May 26th, 2008 |
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Upcoming Events in Indonesia
Along with the endorsement of 2008 as Visit Indonesia Year, a line-up of programs has been arranged to give visitors a closer encounter with the country’s magnificent culture. Here are some of the highlights to come in the next few months:
Date: May 15th, 2008 |
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Craftsmen of Bejijong: Trowulan, East Java
Trowulan, located some 12 kilometers south of Mojokerto regency in East Java, has long been known as a historical site. The Hindu and Buddhist-influenced temples that dot the area are evidence of a rich cultural heritage, which also includes ceramic pieces, bronze and silver art and stone carvings. But the few craftsmen still engaged in creating works of art with religious themes are diminishing, and the few still holding on to their profession are finding it harder to preserve the ancient art they inherited from their ancestors.
Date: May 7th, 2008 |
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Future plans of the Lontar Foundation
After 20 years, the Lontar Foundation has decided on a major make-over as a modern multi-media Indonesian literary promotion agency. This means a new approach to marketing Indonesian literature in an age when printed books are losing out to the web. There is new interest in Indonesian language, literature and culture, in Asia and globally. This means a new lease of life for Lontar as it embraces on-line and print-on-demand technologies and brings in 21st century distribution concepts.
Date: April 28th, 2008 |
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