Pesta Boneka #3 (Day 2)

Yesterday (18 December) was day two of Pesta Boneka #3, a puppetry festival in Yogyakarta organised by the Papermoon Puppet Theatre, which this year is happening at Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardjo in Bantul.

There were a variety of workshops and performances on offer during the day for children and adults, as well as a running exhibition.

The day began for me with a workshop on object theatre and the visualisation of poetry by Agus Nur Amal, an Acehnese performer who had given a solo show the night before. Agus had offered a version of this workshop in the UK for the Object Theatre Network, and as I had seen a video of this workshop and discussed it with a number of participants, I was familiar with some of what he had to offer already. The workshop began with a concise description of some of the principles he uses to animate objects.

For example, height of objects relative to his body determines meaning and attitude. A woven rattan cone held up high symbolises a mountain one is climbing, while down below it might be a mountain seen from an airplane or something else entirely. Pace also determines meaning. Dropping or raising a red disc slowly symbolises the setting or rising the sun - but this will not be clear if it is done too quickly. A simultaneous action taking place in two locations can be connected via song or sound effects. All along he pointed out to us how important it is to dramatise actions, and how he is able to switch back and forth between roles through costume and relation to objects.

Much of his work is based on an Acehnese storytelling tradition, and also informed by the language of film (for example soundtracks, interior and exterior shots etc). Agus said that as a youth he worked as a travelling announcer of films, promoting the latests release through a megaphone on the back of a pickup truck.

We began the participatory bit of the workshop by constructed a kind of 'happy world' map from objects that Agus brought with him. I made for example the River Thames with a blue strip of cloth and the nearby Richmond Park. Agus asked me if there was a bridge over the river. I said of course, and added one using a strip of plastic.

Agus then had a number of us do some simple actions to get from one location to the next. The most elaborate perhaps was a scene a workshop participant acted out in which he was magically transported from a grave by a spirit (a plastic bag) to the mysterious Mount Bromo.

A number of the workshop participants, who included both Indonesians and foreigners attending the workshop, brought in bits of poetry which Agus worked on with us. Two of them dealt with themes of dying and Agus ingeniously constructed hospital equipment such as an oxygen mask, an observation window etc.

That evening I returned to Padepokan Seni to see two performances. The first was by the much-loved children's tv puppeteer and illustrator Suyadi, who performs in the garb of a Javanese priyayi under the name Pak Raden, and is best known as the creator of the si Unyil television series. (See picture above.)

Suyadi offered two short plays. The first was a tabletop Unyil puppet play in which a girl named Melani runs away from home as she doesn't want to do the dishes, gets lost in the forest and is given a magical song by a fairy godmother that allows her to avoid being hurt by her enemies. She returns home in the end and helps her grandmother do the dishes after she learns that the magical song only works in the forest.

The audience was familiar with nearly all the characters in the play already, and shouted out in recognition of them. The ogre Raksasa, for example, who eats naughty children, had parents and children screaming in delight. Are there any naughty children here, Raksasa asked? A father held his two children's hands aloft, making the older of the two squirm.

During the second part of his show, Suyadi, who is now eighty years old and arrived at the stage in a wheelchair, told a story and illustrated it on a white board, adding bits and rubbing out bits as the story changed. He was shaky on his feet, but helped out by several assistants. He promised at the end that the next time he would give a longer show. Clearly people in the audience loved what he did, and were touched by the octogenarian's efforts.

The second show of the night was an adaptation of the French film The Red Balloon by the young English company String Theatre. Ria, the festival's director, had met the company when they performed in the same festival in India in 2010, and invited them to the Pesta Boneka. The company of two had both worked previously at London's Puppet Barge and worked with long string marionettes. This was familiar stuff for me (the Puppet Barge moors every September in Richmond, where I live, and I have been seeing performances almost annually since 2005) but the audience in Bantul was clearly enchanted by this novel form.

So, all in all, another very fine second day.

Pesta Boneka #3 (Day 1)

Today was the official opening of the third Pesta Boneka organised by Papermoon Puppet Theater, a Yogyakarta puppet theatre that toured the US in the autumn of 2012 with their show Mwathirika about the 1965-66 mass killings in Indonesia. I got to know the company's artistic director Ria and her husband the painter Iwan Effendi fairly well during my 2009 stay in Yogyakarta, and it is a pleasure to see the company growing and thriving, with even more ambitious projects in the work.

The festival is taking place over three days at Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardjo, an arts centre in the southern outskirts, and includes 6 performances, an exhibition and a number of workshops for both children and adults.

The exhibition included an interactive boat by an Australian company, string puppets made by String Theatre Marionettes, a young English company (ex Moving Stage marionette performers) that is doing a small tour of Java; wayang puppets by Ledjar Subroto; a display of Sukasman's wayang ukur stage and several puppets (see picture below); contemporary wayang beber sketches by Dani Iswardana; and a number of impressive works of art based on wayang iconography. A video of one of Eko Nugroho's wayang pieces was also playing when I visited.

The two performances tonight were both by familiar faces to me. The festival opened with a 50-minute wayang kancil performance by Ki Ledjar Subroto of the all-time classic Kancil Nyolong Timun (Kancil Steals Cucumbers). The trickster mouse deer, finding that ecological degradation had resulted in a short supply of food in his home forest, left the jungle to forage in the human fields. There he discovered cucumbers, which he found to his liking, even if they did make him urinate a lot. The irate farmers, who all appeared to be portrait puppets of Yogya personages (a portrait puppet of Ledjar himself also opened and closed the show), capture Kancil and bind him to a tree. But Kancil tricks a gullible orangutan into freeing him, saying that he is being held there as he has been promised to marry the daughter of one of the farmers.

Kancil subsequently tricks crocodiles into forming a bridge to get him across a body of water; tricks Tiger into eating buffalo poo, claiming that it is the magical jenang of the Prophet Solomon and will make him full for the week; and tricks Elephant into saving him from a well. He claims that he is no longer a trickster like in the Soeharto regime. The line that in Reformasi times nobody deceives anyone any more got a good laugh from the audience.

Throughout, Ki Ledjar promoted his skills, saying he would gladly perform at weddings, return to perform at Padepokan Seni if requested etc. He made numerous errors along the way with the puppets (which is only to be expected from a man of his years) but had a good comeback line for each mistake and was well liked by the audience of adults and children. He remains, as ever, Java's preeminent 'puppet uncle'.

The second performance was by Agus Nur Amal, who performs under the stage name PM Toh. Busy as usual, Mas Agus had only just flown in from Jakarta and was picked up at the airport by Ria. This occurrence, and the Newtown school mass shooting (and perhaps my own brief discussion with him before the show), sparked an improvised object theatre performance about a love triangle.

A character named Ria (symbolized by a cute hair band with mouse-like ears, sometimes worn, sometimes animated) is waiting at the Yogyakarta airport for the arrival of her American husband - who the audience decides to name Iwan and is symbolized by a black peci cap. On the plane, Iwan sits next to an attractive Yogya woman (a green plastic bag) who is returning to her home town after doing an MA in the States. They exchange BBM numbers. Iwan takes Ria for a romantic outing at Parangtritis beach (a blue wash tub). The audience laughs hilariously when Iwan's sperm (a strip of a white plastic bag) emerges from a plastic funnel and flows into a plastic water scooper. Ria becomes pregnant and her stomach swells. Iwan contacts his new female friend and they go off for a Bollywood-style dalliance in the forest-- the borrowed set of the wayang kancil show. She too becomes pregnant and there is a tremendous fight in which Ria kills Iwan and his lover.

Agus then stops to apologise to the real Ria, saying that he didn't mean to cast her as a murderer. He had earlier viewed a news programme about the Connecticut school killings on tv and this had prompted this grave turn of events. Agus says he will have to do something. Iwan is rescued by a submarine (a water sprinkling can puffing out a white plastic bag from behind), then medevaced by a helicopter (the same water scooper used to symbolize Ria's jewels).

Thirty years pass. Ria and Iwan's child has grown from a baby-size boot to an adult boot and presents himself in front of a plastic-framed photograph of Ria that Agus had requested in advance from the festival organisers. Mother, he asks in the melodramatic style familiar from the oral tradition, who is my father? I would go in quest of him.

This was a superb opening of what promises to be an excellent few days of puppetry. I am very glad to be able to be here in Yogya to attend.

Semar Gugat by Seno Nugroho

I am spending three weeks in Indonesia with a small grant from the Home Office to dialogue with potential collaborators for research and educational initiatives. I am also, of course, using the opportunity to see some performances, and also am planning to give another wayang golek cepak show in Pekandagan, Indramayu on New Years Eve.

I saw my first show last night (15-16 December), a performance by one of my favourite Javanese puppeteers, Seno Nugroho, who performed his version of the classic lakon carangan, Semar Gugat (Semar Accuses) for the anniversary of the founding of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. I found out about this show through Facebook and  mentioned that I'd be attending also on FB, so when I arrived Mas Seno was expecting me and encouraged me to sit on stage.

During the talu overture and a pre-show gamelan concert by students from the English Department, I had a chance to talk to Mas Seno.  Mas Seno said the lakon, Semar Gugat (Semar Accuses), was requested by a certain Romo Margono , who also paid for the wayang and loaned his gamelan and Solo-style wayang puppets and flew in from Jakarta for the occasion. I asked why Semar Gugat and Mas Seno said it reflected the current political situation with all the disasters and political conflicts going on. Later, in an introduction to the show the MC explained that the wayang reflected UGM's commitment to society and cultural preservation. Seno though complained that the road to the wayang was sealed off making it hard for spectators to attend. The hard core wayang spectators in Yogya are of course tukang becak who are not in sight here.

The play began with a battle scene prologue. Enter Semar and Kresna. Kresna asks why the world is in such turmoil. Semar says doesn't know but he does know that the little people are suffering. Fights, as ever, are over money, women, power. Each thinks he is in the right. Both of us, says Semar, are on earth to bring light to the dark. We need to finish this together. Exit both.

A mysterious sage named Begawan Sabda Dewa has appeared in the court of Astina and convinced the Pendhawa and Kurawa to bury the hatchet. He says that the Bratayuda war can be avoided and a permanent peace established but it will require first getting rid of Kresna-- who drives the Pendhawa to war. Bima vows that he will bring an enchained Kresna to Astina, where he will presumably be killed. After Bima exits, Sabda Dewa entices Arjuna to capture and bind Semar. For even if Kresna is gotten rid of, with Semar still alive peace would be impossible. Arjuna agrees to the task. 

During the Limbukan clown interlude, spectators, mostly male, throng the stage to witness a protracted standard bit where Seno interviews each of his 9 pesindhen in turn, who are mostly current or past ISI Yogya students. They are arranged at the stage in order of age, from a high school girl closest to the dalang (who says she wants to study language at Gadjah Mada) to 2 older sinden at the far right. 

Seno had warned me that he would interview me and expect me to sing a sulukan during the Limbukan. What he didn't warn me is that he would parody my Javanese accent (just as he parodied the singing style and mannerisms of each of his vocalists) and also accuse me of 'stealing' gigs from him as Canada. (I performed in 2011 with Madu Sari, a Canadian gamelan that Mas Seno had also performed with and was, it seems, keen to perform again with.) He said I must have undersold him. The clowns poked fun at our disparity of income -- he has three sets of puppets at home from Cirebon, Solo and Yogya (I in fact have only one!) while all I (Cangik) have is a set of playing cards. 

The clowns also made passing reference to UGM as a centre of technological innovation. Even with the development of technology, wayang will still exist as there is always innovation in it, always new developments. One of these 'developments' for Seno has been to get rid of the synthesizer that in the past played such a big role in the clown scene. He has returned to an all-gamelan accompaniment as he now feels that the synthesizer blocks people's appreciation of gamelan, and will ultimately lead to wayang fading in popularity. Most of the songs performed in the Limbukan and the Goro-Goro were classics like Caping Gunung, Slendang Biru and Uler Kambang, and Seno spends much time making musical jokes, with the pesinden normally as the butt of these. 

The musical arrangements, however, are hardly conservative. The budalan departure of the army scene that follows the clown scene, for example, has choral singing in harmony and exciting Banyumas style drumming and senggakan for the dancing Kurawa. Not only Dursasana but also Durmagati and Citraksi get to dance - both claim to be jealous of Dursasana's special kendang accompaniment. 

In the scenes that follow, we see Bima attempting to capture Kresna, who is defended by Wisanggeni and Ontoseno. Antareja, possessed by the soul of Dasamuka, fights against his brother Ontoseno. A strange king named Prabu Kaneka Jati steps in when Bima is unable to take Kresna, but Kresna avoids him as well. 

It is 2am when the Goro-Goro clown scene begins. Petruk explains that there are many reasons for people to watch wayang, not only plot but also humour. He cites the version of Semar Gugat by the comic puppeteer Ki Sugito almarhum as a particular inspiration, but notes that there are many other versions of the story, including ones by Ki Manteb and Ki Anom and an amateur dalang (whose name escapes me). Each dalang is not only distinctive but actively invites kontroversi, as such controversy gathers attention and leads to popularity. Seno is sometimes accused of being neither Yogya nor Solo in style. His 'mouth' (cangkem) or vocal style is Solo but not other aspects. The good folk from the national wayang association Senawangi (and here Seno names names) accuses him of being 'Prambanan style', somewhere between Solo and Yogya. The audience laughs heartily at this joke, as Prambanan is considered to be low class in comparison to the court traditions espoused by the two towns. But in fact before the Giyanti treaty and the division of Mataram by 'Matthew's people' (and here the dalang points to me explicitly) Solo and Yogya were one and the same. 

In the middle of a rendition of Slendang Biru, a note is slipped to Mas Seno asking him to allow time for the announcement of the door prize. There are lots of prizes, including a flat screen tv and refrigerator. But the door prize drawing had been announced for 1am and many of the people who had purchased tickets for this had already gone home. Numbers are drawn repeatedly and when nobody stands up to collect the prize, a new number has to be drawn. The audience next to the stage gets impatient. 'Selak subuh!' (it's near morning). 'Wis nggo dalange' (just give the puppeteer the prize). The final prize is in fact won by a bonang player in the group. The audience shouts out that the dalang should cut his salary, and the remainder of the goro-goro is spent poking fun at the musician and what he'll do with his prize.

Mas Seno, like me, spent the door prize drawing looking at his mobile phone. Petruk reports that during the door prize drawing he got a text message from Pekan Baru from a wayang fan listening to the wayang, which is being broadcast via live streaming. He says that Matthew could have done the same, listening to the wayang at home via the Internet. That would have saved him the cost of a ticket. Another clown asks if he (Matthew) understands the language. Yes, of course, he is a dalang and has been laughing happily all night.

Finally, at 3.20am, the story is continued and moves forward at a much faster pace towards completion. Abimanyu reports to Semar that the Pendhawa are all now in Astina and hope to have peace with the Kurawa. Semar offers sage advice about the meaning of life. Arjuna enters, and asks Semar if he loves the Pendhawa. Semar says certainly, lahir and bathin. Arjuna says that in that case Semar must accompany him to Amarta as he is to be sacrificed for the sake of peace. One life must perish so that many do not die in the Bratayuda war. Semar becomes furious and stands up at Arjuna's level. You say you want peace, Semar accuses, but at what cost? I am human and possesses feelings. Abimanyu defends Semar against his father, saying that he is not fighting Arjuna but rather Arjuna's wrong and embarrassing ways. In the middle of the fight, Semar disappears and Arjuna then returns to Astina. 'Perhaps it was ever fated.'

Sanghyang Tunggal tells Semar, Kresna and Wisanggeni at the start of pathet manyura (3.40am) that peace cannot be achieved when there is a lack of unity between rulers and their people. He merges Semar and Kresna into the figure of single priest named Begawan Padma Sabda and transforms Wisanggeni into a cantrik (disciple). At the end of the story, it is revealed that Sabda Dewa was in fact Bathara Guru and Kaenka Jati was Narada (who is also known as Kaneka Putra). Semar says he suspected all along that this was the doing of his brother Bathara Guru. 'Don't you have enough to do already? Your task is to bring light into this world. If you do something like this again, I will mount [to the heavens] and mess you up.' Kresna gets angry at Arjuna for being forgetful of his duties and upbringing and mindlessly heeding a sage without a place. Anoman fights against Antareja and Rahwana escapes from Antareja's body. Petruk and Bagong escape into the puppet chest, saying they will wait out the rest of the lakon there. (They do make one more appearance, but are then scooped up by the puppeteer and bodily transported back to the chest. The puppeteers grins wickedly at this subversion.) Bima fights the rest of the Kurawa and the lakon concludes with Bima's customary dance and a few words. 

   

It is now after 4.30am and as there are no tukang becak in attendance I struggle briefly to find a way back to my accommodation. But I get a ride in the end on the back of a tukang ojek's motorcycle.

Gathotkaca Gugur at the Southbank

I attended yesterday afternoon at the Southbank Centre an abbreviated wayang kulit peformance by Aris Daryono, a musician from Java who has been a member of the Southbank Gamelan Players (SBGP) for some years. This was Mas Aris' debut performance as a dhalang, and in many ways a fairly auspicious start. The wayang, accompanied by the SBGP, was a free event in the ballroom of the Royal Festival Hall (the same location where Purbo Asmoro did his all-night wayang with the Southbank Gamelan Players in 2007), part of an event billed as Gamelan Christmas Chimes that also featured a variety of dances and music, with Ni Made Pujawati and friends. (Unfortunately I didn't get to see the earlier acts.) The wayang lasted a bit over two hours in all. 

Though he has been living in London for quite some time, Mas Aris's English is thickly accented, and the poor amplification meant that it was often hard to understand what he was saying. There was very little dialogue, however, so this was not much of a problem. Gathtokaca Gugur is considered to be a very 'heavy' lakon, as it is part of the Bharatayudha cycle and features the death of one of wayang's most beloved characters. But Aris played up the comedy, with an emphasis on two of the punakawan, Petruk and Bagong, and good use made of his musical talents, particularly in timing the dancing of the puppets to music. His sabetan was a bit rough and unpolished, as might be expected, and though he has a nice singing voice he had some trouble with getting the right notes for the start of the sulukan he sung. Musical accompaniment by the Southbank Gamelan Players was polished and professional - I enjoyed particularly the rendition of Banyumas pieces, though was less convinced by an arrangement of a Sundanese tembang for pesinden, Sundanese rebab and Javanese siter.

There were a number of funny jokes along the way, many aimed at SBGP members. Cakil, in his battle against Arjuna, spoke first with John Pawson, asking if he was single and if so did he want to go on a date with him to see a movie. The punakawan joked about how the SBGP is the best gamelan group in the world, playing on the SBGP's sometimes overly-inflated self opinion. The clowns then apologised to Andy Channing, a SBGP who also directs London's Lila Cita Balinese group, and said that actually it is the second best group. There was also a very funny bit where Durmagati, loaded down with weapons, searches the field of battle to look for Gatotkaca, who is behind him- leading to inevitable panto-like exchanges with the audiences -- 'he's behind you!' 'I didn't say I would kill you...' 'Oh yes you did!' 'Oh no I didn't!'  

All in all, good fun, even if the philosophy and tragedy of the lakon were absent. 

Gala Cultural Evening, Indonesian Scholars International Convention 2012

Last night (10 November 2012) I attend the Gala Cultural Evening that concluded the Indonesian Scholars International Convention 2012 at the Institute of Education in London (http://www.isic-tiimi.co.uk). This was preceded by two days of papers presented by students from Indonesia studying in the UK, elsewhere in Europe, as well as a number of other countries.

The cultural evening was a chance for PPI societies in the UK, bands and singers etc to show off their talents and entertain the gathered students and various other Indonesian supporters (including Charles Humfrey, former ambassador to Indonesia).

Highlights included Gita Gutawa, an Indonesian pop star who is currently doing undergraduate studies in Birmingham, who did her hit song Sempurna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV19hpZcD5g&feature=related) backed by a fashion show, and a saman dance performed by members of PPI Nottingham and friends. (One of the dancers was a British student who was interviewed by the MCs after the dance and said she had started studying saman dance over the summer and had practiced with the Nottingham group for a month.)

There was also an amateur dalang, a lecturer in East Java who also presented a paper on how Javanese philosophy can be used to shape political ideology, who, accompanied by recorded gamelan  music,  danced on to stage in full Javanese costume carrying two wayang puppets and sat down in front of a microphone. The music stopped quickly (generating laughter from the audience) and he launched into a Limbukan in which Cangik told her daughter Limbuk about her responsibilities as an Indonesian studying overseas. He also sung a number of tembang with didactic content. I spoke to a local staff member of the Indonesian Embassy who was nonplussed by the man's paper, implying that Javanese traditional beliefs have no place in democratic Indonesia, and that this effort was a dangerous throwback to the Soeharto regime's Javanism.

Most surprising for me was the announcement of two prizes given out by the manager of the London branch of BNI -- an award of GBP 2500 for the best web design, and GBP 7150 for a 'survival guide' book on studying in the UK. The bank manager said in her speech that the latter prize was even more than her salary.

There also seems to have been a film competition - one of the entries (shown without sound as the MCs went on about other things) was a stop motion wayang film in which Arjuna was shown taking a ride on a subway. Searching around I see that the film is on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCn-Cn1YJW4 and that it was created as an IB art project.

Indonesia Kontemporer 2012

Yesterday (13 October) was the second edition of Indonesia Kontemporer, a festival of contemporary Indonesian arts and culture held again at SOAS. At the first edition a year ago, I was an active participant, performing A Dalang in Search of Wayang. This time round I was a spectator, albeit an interested one. There was a fuller programme than last year, and it seems more people in attendance too, and I managed to attend a fair sampling of the events, though I didn't get to see any of the films on offer (curated by SOAS lecturer Ben Murtagh).

I started out by dropping by a small display of UK-based Indonesian artists, mostly students or ex-students. A number of the artists referenced Indonesian traditional arts in various ways. One of them, Arati Sirman, who studied fine art at Central Saints Martins and art business at Sotheby's, showed a series of works based in part on the illustrations of Hardjowirogo's famous wayang dictionary, Sejarah Wayang Purwa. (See above.)

I attended an artist talk by an English community artist named Helen Marshall about an upcoming Arts Council funded project called Tobong, conducted in collaboration with a Javanese photographer named Risang Yuwono who she met while travelling in Sulawesi. Marshall, who described herself in the talk as a contemporary artist who works in socially engaging modes, went off on motor bike with Yuwono and spent a day visiting an itinerant kethoprak troupe performing on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. This offered a glimpse of their off-stage life, living in the Tobong that is both stage and temporary home. She has research and development money from the Arts Council England to return to Indonesia and stage with Yuwono a series of kethoprak-related events in Yogyakarta in November and December of this year. Among these is to produce 'tableau vivant' -- posing the actors in the same figurations as photographs of them.

Marshall doesn't speak Indonesian or Javanese (a video she showed to us had one of the kethoprak actors say on camera that she should be told to learn Indonesian) and has some rather romantic ideas about the life of these artists and the theatre they perform. And she unfortunately talks about this as a 'collaboration' with the kethoprak performers while saying at the same time that she could never explain her intentions to them. But at least the actors will be paid - she has budgeted in 'modelling fees' for their work. And she also hopes to bring Yuwono to the UK - which would be a good opportunity for him, I suppose.

I next went to a performance of a PPI student group playing songs from around Indonesia. The lead female vocalist was fairly talented, but the accompanying musicians were a mixed lot as one might imagine. The group showed slides taken off the web while they played. A strange moment for me was seeing one of my own performances (the York wayang I did last April) during a slide show of images from the cultural attache's website.

While I was at the talk and concert, my daughter Hannah attended an Indonesian language workshop  and I stopped by a couple of times to see how she was doing. A group of adults sat around a circle and were asked various questions by a young man from Jember about their experiences of going to Indonesia and the differences between life in Indonesia and the UK. He encouraged the workshop participants to go to the Indonesian language classes run on Saturday afternoons in the embassy - and there is free Indonesia food too, he said.

I rounded out the day with two Balinese shows on the stage of the Brunei Lecture Theatre. Segara Madu, a gender wayang group run by SOAS lecturer Nick Gray, performed a number of pieces out of the wayang repertoire and a new composition in Balinese style. I was pretty amazed by the huge number of people in attendance.

This was followed by the festival's highlight, a concert of the London-based Balinese gamelan group Lilia Cita and their sister group, the Balinese dance troupe Lila Bhawa, directed by Made Pujawati. Among the items on offer were Jocasta, a new dance drama based on the Oedipus story (pictured above). The audience, very full, applauded all the pieces enthusiastically.

Throughout the festival I was playing around with my new toys - an iPad provided by my department and my new smart phone - and uploading images to Facebook while the event was going on. I tried as well to upload a video of Jocasta, but the file was too large and only just this morning was able to get it into Dropbox. I did think it was rather cool though that I was able to be (in a sense) a live reporter on the spot, putting my status as 'At Indonesia Kontemporer 2012' and posting images and getting responses (including two 'likes' from family members of one of the artists) as I was watching performances. So while much of the cultural materials at the festival felt familiar, this mediation offered a new experience for me.

Suri Sumatra in Tarot Drome

Last night I was at the Old Vic Tunnels, an underground performance space beneath Waterloo Station, to see Tarot Drome, an immersive spectacle that draws together a number of old-fashioned popular cultural forms - tarot cards, bump and grind shows, freak shows, roller derbies, pro wrestling. The draw for me was Suri Sumatra (aka Heather Morris), a London-based neo-exotic dancer of mixed Scottish and Manadonese descent. I had never come into contact with her name before a trawl through the Southbank's website turned this show up. A Facebook connection put me on to the correct spelling of her stage name (she is credit on the Southbank site as "Sumi Sumatra") and I learned quickly that she studied anthropology at Durham University, lived in Scotland and Jakarta etc. etc.

Suri appeared in two parts of the show. In one part she was among a group of 11 or 12 characters portraying characters in the tarot deck in one of the tunnels. Suri was the Empress in Chinese-style head-dress and the multiple arms of Hindu deities and glanced seductively at visitors, and then touched them or had them touch put dirt on her legs, and fed them strawberries. She didn't speak, perhaps so as not to upset the illusion that she was an exotic visitor.

In the show's grand finale she re-emerges with the rest of the company as a roller derby skater-dancer, dancing around on a platform in a flowing gown and then in short shorts and a bra to the accompaniment of loud music.

Something interesting to talk about, maybe, but even after a couple of beers I left with a slightly uncomfortable feeling, not knowing whether this was a work of ethnic exploitation or a commentary about past practices.