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Futuristic Semar: Cast members of 'Mencari Semar' pose with director Rangga Riantiarno (top, third left), scenographer Deden Bulqini (top, fourth left), Bakti Budaya Djarum Foundation’s program manager Billy Gamaliel (top, center) and Teater Koma’s cofounder Ratna Riantiarno (top, fourth right) on July 31, 2025, after attending a press conference at Galeri Indonesia Kaya in Jakarta. JP/Sylviana Hamdani
Futuristic Semar: Cast members of 'Mencari Semar' pose with director Rangga Riantiarno (top, third left), scenographer Deden Bulqini (top, fourth left), Bakti Budaya Djarum Foundation’s program manager Billy Gamaliel (top, center) and Teater Koma’s cofounder Ratna Riantiarno (top, fourth right) on July 31, 2025, after attending a press conference at Galeri Indonesia Kaya in Jakarta. JP/Sylviana Hamdani
Art & Culture premium

‘Mencari Semar’: Teater Koma seeks ancient wisdom in the digital age

The play unfolds in the futuristic realm of the Nimacha Empire, where humans are gradually being overpowered by droids and robots.

4 days ago
Art & Culture premium

Artistic heritage meets modern beats at 2025 ‘Pagelaran Sabang Merauke’

Music director Elwin Hendrijanto says the show will fuse contemporary arrangements with traditional sounds like Kalimantan’s Karungut and the Batak song “Rambadia”.

6 days ago
Art & Culture premium

LIFEs 2025 explores national identity through art and literature

The Literature and Ideas Festival returns from Aug. 8-16 with "Menjadi Indonesia", featuring over 35 performers.

2 weeks ago

The Latest

Art & Culture

Sudan floods threaten ancient archaeological gem

Rising Nile floodwaters are threatening to swamp an ancient archaeological site in Sudan, after some of the highest ever recorded river levels, archaeologists said Monday.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Korea's largest art fair to go online as pandemic continues

Korean International Art Fair (KIAF), the largest international art fair in Korea, will go online as the government’s strengthened social distancing system continues, the KIAF Art Seoul Committee announced Monday.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Notre-Dame crypt reopens with exhibition 18 months after blaze

The archaeological crypt of Notre-Dame reopens on Wednesday with an exhibition retracing the cathedral's turbulent history nearly 18 months after it was ravaged by fire.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

From window to jug: Lebanese recycle glass from Beirut blast

Standing in a pile of broken glass in northern Lebanon, a man heaved shovel-loads of shards -- retrieved from Beirut after the massive explosion at its port -- into a red-hot furnace.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Manga 'Ghost in the Shell,' Noh merged through VR technology

Noh, one of Japan's traditional performing arts with a history of around 700 years, has expanded its boundaries by realizing the world of "Ghost in the Shell," a sci-fi manga masterpiece, on stage with the assistance of cutting-edge virtual reality and visual technology.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Iraq's Jews fled long ago, heritage struggles on

Growing up in Iraq, Omar Farhadi would heat up dinner for his Jewish neighbors when they rested on the Sabbath. Few are left, and their heritage risks fading away too.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

South Africa's Zulu reed dance scaled back on virus fears

Coronavirus lockdown rules forced Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini on Saturday to host a scaled down version of the annual reed dance celebration.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

As slow as possible: German organ changes note for first time in years

Dozens of mask-wearing music enthusiasts gathered at a church in an eastern German town to witness the first note change in seven years in the world's longest lasting pipe organ performance.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

NY Philharmonic is back, pandemic-style: Playing in the streets

Its fall season has been cancelled and its concert hall closed indefinitely, so New York's Philharmonic is taking it to the streets.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

British Museum acquires 'lost' drawings of Japan's Hokusai

The British Museum said it had acquired 103 "lost" drawings from the 19th century of Japanese artist Hokusai, whose internationally renowned work includes the iconic "The Great Wave".

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Russia's Bolshoi Theatre reopens with a socially distanced 'Don Carlo'

Russia's opera aficionados will flock to the Bolshoi Theatre for the first time in almost six months on Sunday, wearing masks and sitting apart in a half-empty auditorium for a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's "Don Carlo".

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Mutant cats still a draw at Hemingway's virus-hit Florida home

Starved of international visitors, the house once inhabited by writer Ernest Hemingway in the Florida Keys has struggled to stay open. 

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Virtual exhibition highlights folk tales from four continents

Held until Dec. 22, virtual exhibition Let's Talk about Folklore from 4 Continents can be viewed on YouTube.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Arab artists boycott UAE after Israel deal

The United Arab Emirates' move to pursue normalization with Israel has prompted a backlash from Arab artists and intellectuals, who are boycotting Emirati-backed cultural awards and events to support the Palestinian cause.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Can Japan's ancient Noh theater survive coronavirus?

Kennosuke Nakamori's sonorous voice fills a small room as he practices the lines of a traditional Japanese Noh play, even though he hasn't performed before a live audience in months.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

City of London reviews monuments linked to slavery

The City of London Corporation, which runs the British capital's historic financial district, launched a public consultation Tuesday on whether to remove or re-label monuments with links to slavery.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Couples design their own 'virtual babies' at Dutch art exhibit

Couples who want children of their own got a brief taste of parenthood by creating their own "digital babies" during a virtual reality art exhibit in the Netherlands.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

'Fake' Rembrandt might be real, says UK museum

A painting dismissed as a Rembrandt copy and kept in storage at a British university museum, does come from the Dutch master's studio, the institution said on Monday.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Eddy Susanto puts Java as the center of the world in his works

Eddy Susanto’s visually juxtapositional artwork are as phenomenal as they are inspiring, creating a niche genre in contemporary art that is entirely his own.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Sotheby's puts the spotlight on the personal collection of Keith Haring

Sotheby's has teamed up with the Keith Haring Foundation for an exclusive online sale dedicated to the famous American street artist, who passed away in 1990 at the age of 31 following a battle with AIDS.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Salihara announces online art festival

Online festival Musim Seni Salihara will include the latest works of notable performance artists and discussions.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

France's Charlie Hebdo reprints Mohammed cartoons for trial

French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015, said Tuesday it was republishing hugely controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to mark this week's start of the trial of alleged accomplices to the attack.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Lone revelers brighten Notting Hill's empty streets on carnival day

Notting Hill Carnival may have been cancelled this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a couple of colorful individuals on Monday were determined to bring some festival spirit to west London's quiet streets.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Lebanon loses defender of heritage architecture Lady Cochrane

A veteran advocate of the arts and Lebanon's cultural heritage, Yvonne Sursock Cochrane died Monday aged 98, four weeks after the devastating Beirut blast in which she was injured.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Ready, set, Zoom: India gypsy dancers take their art online

The coronavirus pandemic has forced many people to go online, but the largely nomadic, marginalized Kalbeliya face bigger challenges than most, with several living in mud huts or tents with patchy electricity and non-existent WiFi.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Latvian art biennial has a coronavirus twist

The coronavirus pandemic has shut down art exhibitions around the globe, but organizers of the RIBOCA2 biennial in Latvia have pushed ahead, reimagining the event to reflect challenging times.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

New Yorkers celebrate Met's reopening as a sign life is returning

With visitors raising their arms in a sign of victory, clapping and lining up eagerly at ticket windows, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its doors to the public on Saturday in a festive atmosphere  -- a sign for many that the largest US metropolis is returning to normality after a nearly six-month closure caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Freud's Vienna private rooms open, bereft of furniture

All of Sigmund Freud's private rooms in Vienna opened to the public on Saturday -- though they are devoid of any furniture since the Jewish founder of psychoanalysis took almost everything with him when he fled to London before World War II.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Italy sends help to Banksy's overloaded migrant rescue boat

The Italian coastguard sent help on Saturday to a rescue boat funded by British street artist Banksy after the vessel issued urgent calls for assistance, saying it was stranded in the Mediterranean and overloaded with migrants.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Fabric of success: How 'lotus silk' is weaving its way into Vietnam

Vietnamese weaver Phan Thi Thuan hitches up her trousers as she wades into a lotus paddy to gather the stems needed to make a rare and highly sought-after thread.

4 years ago