SHAKIN' FESTIVAL: A performance by Indian belly dancers at the opening of Gajah Mada Town Festival in downtown Denpasar on Sunday. The festival aimed to revitalize the city’s cultural heritage. (JP/Wasti Atmodjo)

The Gajah Mada Town Festival (GMTF) brought Denpasar to its traditional pluralistic roots Sunday as hundreds feasted on Balinese traditional food and enjoyed street parades and attractions offered by the city's various ethnicities on Jl. Gajah Mada on the opening day of the four-day festivity.

The festival, themed "Inspirational Memories", features exhibits and workshops on traditional handicrafts and endek clothes.

The exhibition and workshop were organized by the administration as well as by small and medium enterprises in the city.

Jl. Gajah Mada, a street that runs through downtown Denpasar, is known as the city's old commercial district. It is flanked by several neighborhoods where people of various ethnicities -- Balinese, Chinese, Indians, Westerners and Arabs -- live side by side in harmony.

In recent years, the city administration has tried to revive the dying commercial district and transform it into the city's main tourist attraction. The GMTF represents part of that effort to turn the street into a cultural heritage site.

"This is a celebration of the cultural and economic interaction that this street has been enjoying for the past 50 years," Denpasar Mayor Ida Bagus Dharmawijaya Mantra said while opening the festival Sunday.

"Gajah Mada, as a city center, is a symbol of our multi-cultural heritage; an inspirational memory," he stressed.

Thousands flocked to the opening ceremony.

Traffic in and around the vicinity of Jl. Gajah Mada was detoured to make way for the street parade which featured colorfully decorated dokar (horse-drawn buggies) and hundreds of students wearing modern endek clothes.

Attractions such as sendratari, a traditional dance drama based on the tale of Jayapangus -- a native Balinese king who married the daughter of a Chinese merchant -- as well as an epitome of the island's cultural openness, and the hugely popular Cenk Blong shadow puppet show, will enliven the GMTF.

Mantra said the festival would become an annual event as part of the Visit Indonesia Year 2008 and the Sightseeing Denpasar program.

He pledged to continue to support Jl. Gajah Mada's residents, store owners and peddlers, praising them as integral to the city's economy.

"And it's a good example for the rest of the world because even though this area is so pluralistic, it remains harmonious," he said.

The head of the Denpasar Tourism Agency, Putu Budiasa, said the city administration would maintain the integrity of the city's infrastructure.

"We plan to expand the parking spaces, maintain the sidewalks and put more benches on the sidewalks. We hope this will attract more tourists to Jl. Gajah Mada," he said.

However, not everybody shared the administration's enthusiasm.

Candra, 55, a store owner in Gajah Mada said the area could not continue to survive as a public market.

"Gajah Mada as a public market is a thing of the past. Our stores have been beaten by supermarkets," said Candra, who owns Toko Dewang, a convenience store on the corner of Jl. Gajah Mada and Jl. Sumatra.

Candra said he had managed to keep his store alive by replacing his traditional ware with modern equipment to keep up with market demand.

"The store itself has been handed down in the family for generations. The area used to be a popular flea market, but customers don't go for that kind of stuff anymore," he said.

Candra said his house, which is on the second floor of his shop, maintained its old look -- an art deco style with large windows and dilapidated white paint.

His shop, however, has become more Balinese in style as commissioned by the city administration. Old pillars have been replaced with red bricks, which clash with the look of the second floor.

Only a few buildings remains true to the architectural style of the old Jl. Gajah Mada.

Sakti Soediro, an architect who is also a member of the Bali Tempoe Doeloe Community (BTD), a heritage conservation group, said he was attending the festival as part of a movement to make Jl. Gajah Mada more Balinese -- a program dubbed Saving Bali's Heritage.

"Because the change has not just been happening in Gajah Mada but also in other places in Bali," he said.

"Many old buildings and areas have been transformed so drastically that nearly no traces of their original look remain."

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