The beats of kendang (traditional percussion) and gamelan (traditional music instrument set) ring out through the densely populated urban kampung in Malang, East Java. On every street, coconut-leaf decorations called janur and corn husks are hanging, marking the Kampung Celaket Festival on Jl. Tretes Selatan in Rampal Celaket district last month.

The annual festival began in 2010, although the one this year was the fourth.

“We did not hold the festival a few times, for example in 2014 due to the general election,” Achmad Winarto, the committee head of the festival said.

The activities of the festival are centered at the subdistrict square. The theme this year was: Culture-Learning Kampung, From Local to Global.

The residents hold the festival to affirm their identity as inhabitants of an urban kampung, through cultural and arts activities and traditional children’s games. The kampung invited Malang artists to collaborate in the festival’s programs.

The 2016 festival featured an almost extinct game called “Nyi Putut.” The game is often misunderstood as using mystical power to make a human-sized puppet dance while it actually just uses human energy to move the puppet to the percussive music.

The festival is popular among young people in Celaket Site Exploration, in which archeologists and historians educate them about the history of the city and Celaket. [EVI]