(Courtesy of Fendi Siregar)

Restu Imansari Kusumaningrum has done almost everything to develop her skills as an artist. And now, she'€™s giving her utmost to help develop the nation by becoming an art project producer.

'€œIf I'€™m asked to perform as a dancer, I won'€™t say no. But there'€™s a point where we have to be brave enough to make a decision, and my decision is to develop my country,'€ she said.

Restu is the producer of, among other things, the Indonesian Pavilion at the recent International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in Italy and the co-producer of the South Sulawesi epic I La Galigo, which has been staged in several countries over the last eight years.

Restu said that I La Galigo was the first art project that she produced. Together with Rhoda Grauer, she conducted intensive research for the project before finally teaming up with American stage director
Robert Wilson.

'€œWe had no sponsor at that time, but we kept on going, because the response during the selection process in Makassar was so great,'€ Restu said. I La Galigo, co-produced with the Milan-based Change Performing Arts independent production company, premiered at the Esplanade in Singapore in 2004.

'€œHonestly, I didn'€™t want to continue the production or even become a producer after the premier, but someone that I listen to and trust told me to keep doing this,'€ Restu said. '€œSo here I am now.'€

Born in Bogor, West Java, 48 years ago, Restu started performing when she was five. She first learned Balinese dance before learning Javanese dance from Surakarta Palace choreographers Laksminto Rukmi and Sulistyo Tirto Kusumo.

Although her family had no arts background '€” her father was an agriculture professor and her mother an economist '€” Restu found joy in the arts.

'€œWhen I was little, I was introduced to arts as a way to spend time after school. And I'€™ve stuck to it until now, because arts enlightens our lives,'€ Restu, who also paints and sings, said.

In junior high school, she joined Guruh Soekarnoputra'€™s Swara Mahardhika performing arts troupe, traveling across the country and around the world with the group for 11 years before studying at the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) under noted choreographers Sardono Waluyo Kusumo and Wiwiek Sipala.

At the same time, she studied architecture at Trisakti University in Jakarta.

After years of focusing on traditional dance, she started to develop her contemporary dancing skills.

'€œI think we can'€™t take off well in things contemporary '€” either in the performing arts or fine arts '€” if we don'€™t have a solid grounding first in the classics,'€ Restu said.

Her first contemporary dance experience was Panji Sepuh, choreographed by her teacher Sulistyo Tirto Kusumo, in 1992.

Panji Sepuh is a story of a prince who leaves the world to meditate in solitude to see visions of the present and the future.

'€œWe rehearsed for two years to explore the movements, the feelings and the philosophies. The dance has little movements, but the audience would have a sense that that they were participating in it and feeling it directly,'€ Restu said.

In 1996, she went to South Korea to learn about tantric and shamanistic movements. During the training, she did not eat meat and only ate soup and rice, completely shaved her hair, went barefoot and learned how to shoot a bow.

'€œYour body became so light, and you felt like you could fly. And when I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I always remembered that I used to do those kind of movements,'€ she said, laughing.

'€œHowever, that was the hardest learning process I'€™ve ever done. But it was fun, because I also performed in temples, in an old town, up in a mountain and under a huge banyan tree.'€

Back in Indonesia, she tried to keep her landscape architecture company breathing in the mid-1990s, but it was hard to find projects due to the Asian financial crisis.

She finally closed her company and decided to study again abroad. But before leaving Indonesia in 1998, she made final preparations to set up the Bali Purnati Center for the Arts.

'€œI didn'€™t want to study at universities, because it was too expensive. I met Robert Wilson, and he offered me a chance to learn about theater with him in the US,'€ Restu said.

Under Wilson'€™s direction, she has involved in stage performances in many countries.

Restu went back to Bali Purnati in 2000 and started to prep for I La Galigo and its world tour.

As her career as a producer began to rise, her love life also started to bloom again as she met her future husband, David Halpert.

'€œI first met him in Jakarta when I danced in an event and he was among the audience. We lost contact until we met again in New York, lost contact again and met again in 2004. We didn'€™t date anybody else at that time. We felt a chemistry and we decided to be together,'€ she said.

Restu moved to New York in 2005. There, she kept working on her artistic skills by painting, watching as many theater performances as possible while expanding her network with arts institutions.

After three years of waiting, she finally became pregnant.

'€œIt was not easy to get pregnant for a 43-year-old woman, so it was truly a miracle when we succeeded,'€ said the mother of five-year-old twin boys.

In between her times in New York and Jakarta, she set up Bumi Purnati Indonesia in 2007, which has organized and produced performing and visual arts events exhibitions both in Indonesia and abroad.

'€œProducing art events is not that easy, especially contemporary ones. The challenge is, of course, money,'€ Restu said.

Due to limited resources, she often has to go directly to the field to help her staff prepare events.

Nevertheless, Restu keeps moving forward. Currently, she is conducting research for her upcoming stage productions. '€œI don'€™t have to go through all the hardships, but I want to, because I want to also build my country.'€

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