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No fees 'promised' to Ratoh Jaroe student dancers, says Education Agency
The Jakarta administration has stressed that the Indonesian Asian Games Organizing Committee (INASGOC) had never offered individual honorariums to the thousands of Ratoh Jaroe dancers who performed in the spectacular opening ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games, which ran from Aug. 18 to Sept. 2.
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Fireworks light up the night sky over the Gelora Bung Karno main stadium in Jakarta on Aug. 18 during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games. Dozens of students who performed in the Ratoh Jaroe dance at the opening ceremony have demanded their schools to pay their "honorarium". (The Jakarta Post/Wendra Ajistyatama)
T
he Jakarta administration has stressed that the Indonesian Asian Games Organizing Committee (INASGOC) had never offered individual honorariums to the thousands of Ratoh Jaroe dancers who performed in the spectacular opening ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games.
Acting Jakarta Education Agency head Bowo Irianto was responding to an outcry from senior high school students, who demanded that "their honorariums" be paid for performing in the mass Ratoh Jaroe dance during the Asian Games opening ceremony, held on Aug. 18 in Jakarta.
Bowo said that the INASGOC had only agreed to cover the operational costs of the dance performance.
"The MoU [memorandum of understanding] states that the organizing committee and the schools agreed on an operational fund, not individual honorariums for the dancers," he said on Thursday at City Hall, as quoted by kompas.com.
He added that the operational fund was intended to cover transportation costs and the dancers' meals during rehearsals, as the participating schools did not have a budget for the Asian Games performance.
“So [the schools] received the operational fund and used it for the transportation and the meals of the [participating students]. If they did not use up the money, it depends on the schools’ [individual] policies on whether the remaining money would be distributed to the students or would be reallocated for another purpose,” he said, adding that the uproar stemmed from a misunderstanding between the students and their schools.
Earlier, students from South Jakarta's SMA 46 senior high school staged a protest, demanding that the school pay their "fees" for their Ratoh Jaroe performance. Students from SMA 6 senior high school also demanded their fees, but SMA 6 claimed that it had already paid honorariums to the 168 students that had performed the dance. (ris)
