Art communities and enthusiasts have rebuffed Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s plan for an arts center comparable to Singapore’s Esplanade, saying developing existing art centers is more important than building a fancy new playhouse in Jakarta.

Abduh Aziz, the secretary-general of Jakarta Arts Council (Dewan Kesenian Jakarta), said that the new governor should study the public need in the city before deciding to build a new center.

“Building new infrastructure may be a good idea. A new center could be a new landmark for Jakarta,” Abduh said.“However, our main problem lies in the fact that art has not been society’s basic needs, mainly due to limited access. The governor should think of a grand design for art communities in the city first, before deciding to build a new center. Because art these days can only be enjoyed by a handful of people — the middle class, to be exact — and has not reached all levels of society.”

Developing community centers for all members of the public to express themselves is more important than building a new white elephant. “The public have enough space to express their ideas, but they are poorly managed, therefore art has became fragmented here,” he said.

As previously reported, Jokowi had expressed his desire to build a new art center in Jakarta to support the artistic communities. “With our strong ethnic music and traditional performing art, Jakarta can be transformed into a performing arts city,” Jokowi said recently, as quoted by antaranews.com.

Jokowi said that the plan to build an opera house like the Esplanade in Singapore has been around since the era of Sukarno. “We do need to develop a theater for dance performances and so forth. The design has existed since in the 1960s,” he said. “We are still looking for a perfect place to build it. The location is important to attract visitors.”

Seno Gumira Adjidarma, a novelist and poet, echoed Abduh’s statement saying that the main problem was the fact that the current art centers in Jakarta don’t accommodate the needs of all of Jakarta’s artists.

“What we need is a populist center, where people from different social classes can enjoy the works of artists as well. The public don’t need a new fancy theater,” Seno said.

“We have a lot of art centers, but most of them are very specialized. Some people would like to see Lenong [traditional Betawi theater] and Keroncong [folk music] as well, but they have no place in society now. Most of the art centers in the city only accept ‘high art’,” he added.

According to Seno, a community needs a place in their own neighborhood so they can perform the art that they want to see.

“Some art centers perform folk art but those who want to see it have to wear black suits. That is not the point of folk art,” he said. (nad)

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