Darmasiswa scholarship students and IOIO members (from left to right) Pa Modou, Aurel, Shouichi and Steven, give a creative gamelan performance at the Polytechnic College for Art and Culture, in Yogyakarta. (JP/Claudia Seise)
What would make a group of people from four different continents meet in one room and not discuss world politics or climate change?
A scholarship initiated by the Indonesian government known as Darmasiswa invites young people from nations that have good, friendly relations with Indonesia to study Indonesian culture, arts, music and language in the country.
The Darmasiswa program covers university fees and a monthly stipend of Rp 1 million (US$108) per student. The foreign students are placed in universities around the country.
The Darmasiswa program has been growing steadily over the last three decades since its inception in 1977: In the year 2005, only 120 students received the scholarship, but two years later there were around 400.
The scholarship holders include Gambian, French, German, British, Japanese, Hungarian, Mexican, Australian and Bangladeshi students, among others.
The Indonesian government has ambitiously planned that in the next two years more than 700 students would receive invitations to study Indonesian arts and culture on the Darmasiswa scholarship.
While some foreign students use this scholarship to enjoy an easy year off from their normal life back home, other Darmasiswa students effectively use their time to contribute to campus and community life.
They leave an imprint on their environment and the people around them, and become a part of Indonesian modern culture.
An exciting event recently held at the P4TK Seni dan Budaya (Polytechnic College of Art and Culture), one of the education institutions receiving the foreign scholarship students, allowed the public to observe the foreign students' activities in Yogyakarta.
The main event was a concert by the Inter Oriental Invasion Orchestra (IOIO), which was founded last year by four international students united through the gamelan orchestra and the urge to explore and enjoy traditional Indonesian music.
Three of the four founding students performed on stage on June 5, enchanting the audience with their gamelan sounds and showcasing their creativity.
Shouichi (Japan), Aurel (France) and Steven (UK), all Darmasiswa students, experimented with gamelan instruments to create totally new sounds -- similar to a psychedelic kind of electronic music.
During the June concert, several other Darmasiswa students joined the IOIO performance. Their collaborative work with Pa Modou and Ibrahim from Gambia, as well as Sabir from Bangladesh, made the IOIO's performance even more colorful, oriental and international.
Pa Modou, Ibrahim and Sabir surprised the audience with rap and sketches in their local languages while their traditional dresses and dances completed the introduction to their cultures.
Guests also enjoyed a Mexican wayang kulit shadow puppet play performed by young Mexican dalang (puppet master) Miguel, who is currently studying at P4TK.
Using Indonesian, Miguel retold the myth of the founding of Mexico City. The audience, mostly Indonesians, enjoyed his dalang skills and jokes -- an interesting performance that showed even the very traditional wayang kulit could be adapted into something global.
Pa Modou, a graduate from a teacher's college in his home country Gambia, said he came to Indonesia to study theater and film at the P4TK. He added he had always been interested in film, even more so since the growth of a youth movie industry in Gambia.
Pa Modou belongs to the first group of young Gambians taking part in the Darmasiswa scholarship program since its beginning.
Interested in film and theater for a long time, he decided to apply for the scholarship through his government. Gambia is the smallest country in Africa, located in the West of the continent, and bordered by Senegal from the north, east and south.
Since studying at P4TK, Pa Modou has taken part in several projects, including the making of a documentary about the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan -- called A legacy of Buddhism and Hinduism in Indonesia -- and different theater performances illustrating traditional Indonesian folk tales.
Pa Modou and his classmates have performed in many villages and towns around Java, including at the Banyuwangi Multi Media Art Center in East Java.
Pa Modou's current project includes a documentary about the Darmasiswa program and daily activities for a theater piece titled The Rabbit and the Wolf.
Sabir from Bangladesh -- a freelance photographer with a master's degree in economics -- came to Yogyakarta to study photography and multi media. His favorite theme is human life.
"We have to do something here in this world, first for our faith, for our country and for ourselves," he said of his philosophy in life.
Tari Sikol (150x100cm, acrylic on canvas, 2008) by Franziska, a German student who is studying Indonesian art on the Darmasiswa scholarship program.(JP/Claudia Seise)
Franziska, another Darmasiswa student who is originally from Germany, is studying fine art -- in particular, painting. She is known for her "golden hands", after almost all her works exhibited in her first solo exhibition in the country (at the Affandi Museum in Yogyakarta) were sold out.
In the exhibition, titled "Everything is Rites", Franziska showed the world, culture and tradition around her. Everyday life scenes in her Javanese kampong somehow become mystical and abstract through the sweeping strokes of her brush and the often triangular, religious compositions in her work.
Her works were reminiscent of old Chinese illustrations for folk tales and myths mixed with the strong colors of Indonesia's fathers of modern art, like Sudjojono and Affandi.
After she completes her degree at the Fine Arts Academy in Dresden, Germany, Franziska said she planned to return to Yogyakarta to continue her activities as an artist.
With almost 400 hundred foreign students studying in Indonesia under the Darmasiswa scholarship this year, each can be seen as an ambassador for inter-cultural understanding and world peace.
The IOIO will perform at 7:30 p.m. on June 19 at Tembi House of Culture, Jl. Parangtritis, in Tembi, Bantul, Yogyakarta.
The group will collaborate with other international artists in a June 21 performance at LIPI, the French Cultural Centre in Yogyakarta.
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