There were many âfirstsâ in this year festival, which for the past 22 years has been scouting Indonesian talents and nurturing artistsâ collaboration at home and overseas
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When US contemporary dance pioneer Martha Graham described dance as 'the hidden language of the soul', she may have forgotten to mention that even after the curtain call, the 'hidden language' continues to communicate.
Each performance during the biennial Indonesian Dance Festival (IDF), held in Jakarta from Nov. 4 to 8, etched deep impressions; from how the choreographers' interpreted themes all the way to how the dancers expressed them.
Cry Jailolo, for instance, transported the audience at the Jakarta Playhouse on Wednesday to the mystical underwater world of Jailolo Bay, North Maluku.
Choreographed by renowned dancer Eko Supriyanto, the dance was based on Legu Salai, a tribal dance native to the Sahu people of Jailolo. The dance's defining feature was an incessant tapping of the heels.
For more than an hour, seven performers, most of them Jailolo natives, regaled the audience with their choreographed transmutations, morphing from fishmongers to coconut trees and from the sea to the wind.
There was no backing music, save for some clapping and chanting on the part of the dancers, and the lighting and dramaturgy provided by German choreographer Arco Renz, a regular of the IDF, gave the stage an eerie atmosphere.
Eko said that the dance was homage to the natural beauty of Jailolo Bay, which is currently suffering from the man-induced destruction of its coral reefs.
The next dance was also inspired by local tradition, this time from the Minang ethnic group in West Sumatra.
In contrast to Eko's vertical-style dance, In Between, a piece choreographed by the versatile German artist, Katia Engel, in collaboration with the Indonesian choreographer, Benny Krisnawardi, started with three dancers crouched down on the tips of their fingers and knees, just a foot off the floor. At one point they rolled around and leapt at one another in a surprise attack.
The movements, drawn from the Minang martial art form, pencak silat, brought to mind pouncing for prey actions.
The dance was presented mostly in silence, with the exception of the sound of crickets and traditional music at intermission and at the end of the show.
Katia projected a video of the dance behind the dancers onstage. The footage added a whole new dimension to the dance performance.
Sometimes, the dancers on the stage moved in sync with the dancers in the video, but more often than not, the dancers on the screen and the dancers onstage complemented one another's movements.
The performance was a meditation on stillness, transition and what happens in between.
The pensive works were in line with the event's theme, 'Expand', which the Jakarta Institute of Art's performing arts school, as show organizer, hoped would encourage performers to improve the quality of their performances.
There were many 'firsts' at this year's festival, which for the past 22 years has striven to discover new Indonesian talent and nurture collaboration between artists at home and abroad.
For the first time in its history, for example, the IDF decided to commission two works: the festival's opening performance, Retno Maruti's Roro Mendut, and the festival's closing piece, KRIS IS, which was put together by a team comprised of Arco, Ali Sukri and ISI Padangpanjang, an art institute in West Sumatra.
Roro Mendut, a neo-classical Javanese dance that premiered back in 1977, was given new life with visuals by Nindityo Adipurnomo.
In previous years, the IDF opted to focus almost exclusively on finished works, but this year organizers decided to create a new program called 'LAB', where attendees could observe the creative process of developing a dance.
Organizers also created the mother and child program, in which that sought to engage families who continued to view dance strictly as a pastime rather than as something that could become a career.
The theme of 'expansion' could also be seen in the lineup of artists and the diversity of collaborative works on hand.
Among them was Metal, Camera and Flying Objects from the phenomenal Japanese contemporary dance group, Contact Gonzo, as well as the Jakarta-based heavy-metal band Rising the Fall, who performed on Saturday at the amphitheater at the Komunitas Salihara complex in South Jakarta.
With a vision of expanding Asian dance arts, the IDF also held master-classes and discussions about proper dance infrastructure and on to how to spur innovation in contemporary Asian dance moderated by Choy Ka Fai, a Singaporean, and Rianto Manali, an Indonesian national living in Japan.
'The IDF has provided a platform for nurturing young choreographers to produce inspiring and improved works, to [encourage them to] take advantage of different resources ['¦] and connect artists from various disciplines,' said IDF executive director Maria Darmaningsih.
' Photos JP/Ricky Yudhistira
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