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span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">In song: Dik Doank and his children’s community Kandank Jurank Doank perform at Bentara Budaya. JP/P.J. LeoKids from the Kandank Jurank Doank school had fun with used buckets, bottles, spoons and frying pans at a recent performance that wowed audiences for more than two hours.

The dark of the night that encapsulated Bentara Budaya Jakarta did not stop the children from having the time of their lives, playing with their makeshift musical instruments and singing their hearts out.

The show opened with a heart-melting violin solo by a boy in a black T-shirt and blue jeans. But, the mellow nuance of “You Raise Me Up” soon changed to cheerfulness with the drumming of five children on buckets.

The lively performance concluded with the appearance of 10 singers in red and white T-shirts decorated with shiny paper in the form of human silhouettes, so when the children stood next to each other they looked like people holding hands.

Different from other children’s performances, where the little performers usually don heavy makeup and accessories, this show appeared much humbler as the only ornaments that the children from Kandank Jurank Doank wore were crowns of paper.

But, those adornments were enough to make them the kings and the queens of the show.

That night, the children offered a musical performance titled “Tukar Kabar” (Exchanging News). For a full two hours the children sang, rapped, danced, clapped and played their instruments tirelessly, with big smiles throughout the show.

The school’s owner-artist Dik Doank occasionally jumped on the stage to give simple and warm introductions to the songs, and always opened and finished with “tepuk tangan yang ikhlas”, reminding the audience to offer their most sincere clapping and appreciation to the children.

The children mostly sang songs about their world. Listening to the lyrics brought back childhood memories, as with “Main di Luar Yuk” (Let’s Play Outside) about traditional pastimes like kelereng (marbles), petak umpet (hide and seek), main taplak (hopscotch), main karet (jumping rope) and many other games.

Another track was about education, but different from the previous songs that were mostly carefree and fun, that hit served as a criticism of the current education system that ignores the element of fun in the learning process.

Dik Doank and his Kandank Jurank Doank is trying to fill that gap in the Indonesian education system by giving children space to learn about music, the arts and nature, things that are rarely discussed in the usual learning methods.

Kandank Jurang Doank is located near Dik Doank’s house in Ciputat, a Jakarta suburb. It possesses a perfect landscape of soccer fields and basketball courts. The school also operates a library, a rumah pintar (activities center) and a small music studio. Children can also use the amphitheater and an outbound playground as well as enjoy the rice fields and fish ponds in the school’s complex.

The artist said the school started off in 1994 as a painting and music learning group for about a dozen children in the neighborhood. As time went by, it grew more serious with more and more students from nearby subdistricts joining the classes, encouraging Dik Doank to open Kandank Jurank Doank, which now has 2,500 students.

Children with special needs and Down’s syndrome are also welcome in the classes. In fact, one of those special pupils became the star of their recent performance.

Dicky, as he was called during the show, shared the same stage with nine other child singers that night, singing and dancing confidently.

When Dik Doank asked him to sing a song, he immediately grabbed the microphone and gave an all-out performance, belting out Bon Jovi’s legendary “I’ll Be There for You”, which was followed by cheers and claps from the audience.

“We can learn a lot from children like Dicky,” Dik Doank said after Dicky’s brilliant performance.

The rest of the show was filled with neat collaborations between Dik Doank and the kids. Unfortunately, Dik Doank at one point overshadowed the children with a song that left the children as nothing but the backing vocalists.

But, the man deserves a little bit of the spotlight because it is Dik Doank and his crew that have taught the children to become musical pros.

The experience performing at Dik Doank’s many events has trained them. Watching the children perform, if audience members closed their eyes they would not know the music was being played by children.

With the theme “Exchanging News”, the audience surely got very good news from the Kandank Jurank Doank children that night.

And in return, the children received the most sincere appreciation from the audience at the end of the show.