Organizer: Amrih Widodo, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Chair: Nancy K. Florida, University of Michigan
Discussant: Anthony Day, University of Sydney
Michael Bodden, University of Victoria, British Columbia
This paper examines the ways in which contemporary popular theater participates in broad processes of social change in Indonesia. Through a comparison of the fate of two popular theatrical productions mounted during the year following President Suharto's call for a more open public airing of opinions on August 16, 1990, as well as an analysis of the recent emergence of a lively, if fragmented workers' theater movement in Indonesia, I show the state's attitude towards popular protest theater has been conditioned by a number of tactical considerations, and that its responses towards such theater are therefore hardly the simple result of a clear and consistent ideology or set of regulations. This is so even in instances where a particular group challenges the very legitimacy of the assumptions underpinning the New Order.
I pay particular attention to the form and content, government reaction to, and media coverage of Teater Koma's 1990 Jakarta production of Suksesi, and performances in Madiun and Surabaya in 1991 of Emha Ainun Nadjib's Lautan Jilbab. In what way do these plays challenge the legitimacy of the state and how do the Suharto group's struggles with various social forces attempting to change the status quo condition the government's response to each. Finally, I examine the growth of worker's theater in light of increasing labor activism and of the Indonesian state's attempts to cope with changing international economic conditions.
Nancy Florida, University of Michigan
There is a tendency on both sides of the post-colonial divide to consider the "traditional" or "classic" arts of "the East" in binary opposition to the "modern" art forms, whose source is thought "the west." This conceptual assumption has generated discourses of cultural loss and conservation-and sometimes of potential regeneration-as some contemporary observers fret over the recession of the "timeless arts of the Orient" before the present-day deluge of modernizing Euro-American cultural forms. In light of these assumptions, this paper will examine a contemporary Javanese artist's representation of a nineteenth-century classical court dance as avant guarde art in late twentieth-century America.
In the fall of 1993, the preeminant Indonesian choreographer Sardono brought his "Passage through the Gong" to stages in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. At the center of Sardono's piece is a classical srimpi dance that was composed in the third quarter of the nineteenth century by a colonial king in Central Java. This paper will discuss how Sardono's re-staging of this classical dance works both to depict the colonial conditions of that dance's original composition and to suggest the "traditional potential" of the same dance to transform the conditions of its own production.
Barbara Hatley, Monash University
In the late seventies in Yogyakarta and in Central Java, the popular theater form kethoprak was staged each night in and around the city by five commercial troupes; all-night performances in villages for weddings and circumcision might attract several thousand viewers, and community celebrations such as Independence Day were marked by shows by local amateur groups. Though a more streamlined, scripted version of the form appeared in weekly television broadcasts, standard kethoprak performances played out stories of Javanese history and legend through wholly improvised dialogue and a framework of dramatic conventions blending stock elements from Javanese theatrical tradition with reference to the new and up-to-date. My own research findings seemed reinforced by the statements of practitioners, in suggesting that such shows embodied the contemporary concerns and sense of identity of their lower class (wong cilik) Javanese performers and audiences.
By the early 1990s, there were no commercial troupes performing in and around the city-two stage appearances monthly by the government radio group were the only regular public performances. Television kethoprak continued, however, its popularity boosted by such measures as newspaper competitions for viewers concerning current serialized stories. In state-organized kethoprak competitions, scripted performances very much on the model of a Western play were staged with great attention to such factors as psychological realism and dramaturgy. Performances for village weddings reportedly still occurred, albeit less frequently, while neighborhood Independence Day celebrations were more likely to involve a pop music band than kethoprak. An innovative new style, kethoprak plesedan, which subverted the language and conventions of the standard form in conveying social criticism, enjoyed a brief boom of popularity, especially among young people, until performances were halted after a year due to their perceived political sensitivity. The main group which had been involved in plesedan activity, Sapta mandala, soon after appeared in a performance commissioned by the sultan of Yogyakarta, dramatizing the founding of Yogyakarta by the sultan's ancestors, played out in the palace itself.
This paper attempts to explore the meaning of these developments for kethoprak as a form and the sense of identity of its erstwhile wong cilik constituency. Should these changes be read as evidence of the appropriation of a people's art form by the state agencies and elite figures, and its incorporation by forces of globalization and commercialization? Or, given the active participation of humbly-born performers, their dialogue with modern theater practitioners and growing cross-fertilization between theater genres, in the context of an intricate cultural politics and broad shifts in social identification and taste, should these processes be seen as more complex, dynamic and multivalent, allowing greater agency to "the people"-whoever they may be?
Sumarsam, Wesleyan University
In a wayang wong scene, the Lord Guru handed a powerful arrow Pasopati to Arjuno via a dwarf Dutch figure; gamelan Cara Balen, the Dutch national anthem Wilhelmus, and gendhing Sri Katon were sounded together; Polka and Waltzes were played at the Surakarta court tower Songga Buwana, a sacred place where the ruler and the Goddess of South ocean unite; srimpi and bedhaya dancers wore and shot revolvers in their performance. These are kaelokan (marvelous, wondrous, and mysterious event). Yet, they seemed to happen quite naturally in central Javanese court cultures in the context of European colonialism. This paper will suggest that multi-cultural Java provided the creation of the world of kaelokan. The population of the central Javanese principalities contained-in addition to the indigenous Javanese-large segments of Dutch and other Europeans, Chinese and other nationalities, as well as people of mixed parentage. Concurrent with the consolidation of colonialism and westernization, the interactions of the various groups of the population in the court cities created a highly complex and dynamic society. The interactions also produced unusually rich variants of the content and context of Javanese music cultures which kaelokan was a salient part.
Would you like to return to the Southeast Asia Table of Contents? Choose another area?