Show your moves: Unboxing Dance aims to understand how culture shapes dancers’ movements. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)

The Jakarta Arts Council will present a collection of dance performances and discussions on Wednesday to explore the influences culture has on dance.

How exactly a person’s cultural background influences the way they move and gesture will be dissected in an upcoming dance event in Jakarta.

Organized by the dance committee of the Jakarta Arts Council, Unboxing Tari: Politik, Tubuh dan Ruang (Unboxing Dance: Politics, Body and Space) will offer a dance workshop, performances and discussions.

The event will take place at Galeri Cipta 2 in Taman Ismail Marzuki on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 9:20 p.m.

“Unboxing Dance is not just a dance show. For dancers, this event will encourage them to realize the things they have to understand to develop their skills further,” Rusdy Rukmarata, a dance committee member and EKI Dance Company founder.

“For choreographers, it will expand their knowledge [and] help them to create more dynamic choreography,” said Rusdy.

The event will showcase “lecture-performances” of 30 selected dancers who have participated in weekly dance workshops at the EKI Dance Company studio in South Jakarta since April 3.

Explore: After a three-week workshop, 30 participating dancers will present their interpretations on “body and space” at Unboxing Dance on Wednesday. (Courtesy of BDI/Harry Sutanto)

The event’s committee head, Hartati, opted for a unique approach to lead the workshop.

Recognizing that the dancers had their own style and came from different ethnic backgrounds, Hartati taught them a series of movements based on their cultural background of Minang, West Sumatra.

“It’s more than just technique. The most important thing is that these young, talented dancers can have new experiences with their body and soul,” said Hartati.

Hartati and Rusdy believe there is a political connection between body and space. Thus, they designed the dance workshop to help the dancers to realize this connection.

Aside from the workshop, the dancers will take part in focus group discussions led by University of Indonesia philosophy lecturer Saras Dewi and Padjadjaran University’s Aquarini Priyatna Prabasmoro.

Saras will present at the Wednesday event, speaking in a discussion titled “The Political Meaning of Body,” while Aquarini will speak at “The Political Meaning of Space”, looking into culture and gender studies.

New style: The dance’s committee head, Hartati (front), introduces dance movements of different cultures. (Photo by Sukadi)

Choreographer Eko Supriyanto, poet Fariq Alfaruqi and actor Tony Broer will also join the panel discussions.

“It’s going to be an interesting discussion as we have invited some experts from various fields,” said Yola Yulfianti, a dance committee member.

Yola expressed the hope that the event would help aspiring dancers to realize the deeper meaning of dance movements.

“We need to have a critical point of view in seeing how our body interacts with space,” Yola said.

The event will also feature a live cooking show.

“Knowing about the ingredients and how [food] is cooked will make us appreciate the food in front of us more,” Rusdy said.

“Similarly, knowing that dance is not just beautiful in an artistic way but has value in the creation process allows us to see dance from new perspectives.”