A gift from Germany to Indonesian children's theater

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 09/10/2006 7:47 AM | Life

Tam Notosusanto, Contributor, Jakarta

The middle-aged Caucasian man stood in the middle of the room. Over 100 Indonesian children sat in a circle watching him. The man started showing some movements to the 20 children standing before him who had been randomly picked from the audience.

""Imagine you have a brush in your hand and you're painting a wall in front of you,"" he said, as his right hand mimed the motions of a painter at work. The kids imitated him.

""Now, your brush moves here,"" he said, pointing to his elbow. ""Paint with it!""

The children got busy painting the invisible wall with their elbows.

""Now,"" he screeched, ""Your brush is HERE!"" And with that he started wiggling his buttocks. The room exploded with laughter. The 20 little ""painters"" also laughed as they ""painted"" with their buttocks.

It didn't take long for Norbert Radermacher to win the hearts of these children, children speaking a language different from his, children he just met five minutes earlier. Radermacher has worked for over three decades teaching theater to children. He founded The Theater Pedagogical Center, a cultural education institution, in his native Germany. He also established the world's first Children's Theater Festival.

Radermacher was in Indonesia for five days to give theater workshops to children's theater groups from Jakarta and Bandung. Last Tuesday, his first day ever in Indonesia, he guided young actors representing five theater groups from Jakarta and Depok through a number of theater games and exercises. For an hour and a half, they worked and laughed together in the lobby of Graha Bhakti Budaya, Ismail Marzuki Arts Center.

Fifteen-year-old Irna was delighted with the exercise called ""Follow the Hand,"" where she must never take her gaze off the moving palm of her partner's hand in front of her -- even if she must crouch or crawl on the floor.

""But I also like the one where we change emotions as we move around the room,"" she said, describing the exercise where Radermacher divided the room into four squares: Angry, Fearful, Sad and Happy. The kids had to alternately demonstrate the four different emotions according to the section of the room they were walking into.

Levi Mulia Wardana, 14, felt the exercises were similar to the theater workshops he regularly attended at his group, Theater Tanah Air.

""But there's a different kind of discipline,"" he said, pointing to the exercise where he and other kids play ""blind men."" Levi, with eyes closed, must follow his partner wherever he went just by relying on the noise his partner made. The trick was to concentrate on his partner's specific noise in the cacophony of noises made by other blind men's partners.

""That's tough concentration, that's discipline, and it's useful onstage,"" he added.

""These were some games we use for warmups, others for the kids' improvisation,"" said Radermacher later, ""I got them from all over the world, among them Japan, Brazil.""

""He has been to 80 countries,"" said TV personality Peggy Melati Sukma, who organized the event with Theater Tanah Air (TTA) founder Jose Rizal Manua. ""But he had never been to Indonesia, so we invited him to come here.""

Peggy, who is now active in theater and social work, had been working as the project officer for ""Wow,"" the show TTA brought to Lingen, Germany to compete in the World Children's Theater Festival Radermacher organized earlier this year. When the group won first prize, TTA and Indonesia were in the spotlight. Consequently Peggy and Jose earned a network of new international friends, including Radermacher, who was particularly impressed with TTA's performance.

""They're different from other contestants,"" he reminisced. ""The group from the United States delivered a Broadway-style show, the Singaporeans put out a Chinese opera show. They were very good. But that's it. Meanwhile, Tanah Air gave us something based on traditional culture. But they brought their own ideas and movements into it. It became a reflection of their own thinking. And it's all children, no adults. And they gave a wonderful ensemble performance. It's special.""

His interest in Indonesia's rich culture prompted Radermacher to do the workshops here largely on a voluntary basis. Peggy helped out with accommodation and she was the interpreter when Radermacher communicated with the kids. Jose persuaded the Jakarta Arts Council to provide a venue for the workshop. It was essentially the efforts of these individuals and the meeting of their minds that made the event possible, without much involvement of the government or any other institution.

""They are great kids, I love them,"" said Radermacher of his workshop's participants. ""I'd love to do more workshops here in the future. Maybe with the leaders and teachers of children's theater groups. We can probably work out some design to help children's theater here grow. We can really start something together.

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