Seeing the globe through Performance Arts
Karolina – photo by Arief Budianto
The ‘grandmother of performing arts’, as she calls herself, Marina Abramovi?, recently performed her greatest work, The Artist can be Present. Seated for 750 hours at the MoMA gallery in brand new York, she continuously looked into the eyes of a long succession of strangers. A performer since the 1970s, today Marina has become well-known amongst younger generations after Lady Gaga in addition to James Franco recently brought her artwork into the spotlight.
Her MoMA performance was documented from the film The Artist can be Present, which also featured the artist Ulay – Marina’s former lover – whom she dramatically left on the Great Wall of China during a performance in which they ended their relationship by walking away in opposite directions. Ulay made a dramatic appearance at her recent performance, where they reunited in addition to held hands across the table in a moving scene.
For eight years, Indonesian performing artist Melati Suryodarmo, studied under Marina Abramovi?, whose students undertake a strict schedule of fasting in addition to perform various exercises to learn how to be ‘present’ in addition to improve their stamina.
Marina & James Franco
Melati certainly has stamina; in one of her internationally famous pieces called EXERGIE: Butter Dance, Melati wore a tight black dress in addition to high heels in addition to danced on 20 blocks of butter for 20 minutes. Some critics were left puzzled by the piece which became viral on the Internet. However, many performing artists such as Melati use the body to express themselves, rather than through isolating meaning with words. According to Melati, the piece was about time in addition to our attitudes towards certain moments – for Melati the most important moment in time was after each fall in addition to her will to rise again. Despite the terrifying ups in addition to downs, Melati, at the end, was able to get up in addition to walk away through the item all.
I recently met Melati’s father in addition to the father of dance in addition to performing arts in Indonesia – Suprapto Suryodarmo – at his home in Solo, Central Java. Ironically, Suprapto can be more famous outside of his homeland in addition to has visited (or lived in) countries including Japan, Italy, Mexico, India, The Netherlands, France, Germany, USA, UK in addition to Australia – teaching in addition to learning more about dance. Curious to find out more, I joined up for a course with Suryodarmo to learn about his Joged Amerta technique, which he developed from the 1970s – an exploratory free-form dance movement which he teaches in Java in addition to Bali.
Studying on an intensive ten-month course with Suprapto was Polish artist Karolina Nieduza. “The aim of my visit was to find a common field; to explore a brand new way between my background in archaeology in addition to performance art movement. The additional important practice was tuning – to find a common language for dialogue with nature, God in addition to additional humans. Suprapto’s aim was to wake up the sleepy potential within, find a brand new point of view in addition to be able to transform the item into art. He also taught how to grow trust, feel confident in addition to surrender.”
Suprapto organises various performing art events across Java in addition to often encourages artists to remember their heritage. Every month at the Radya Pustaka Museum in Solo, artists are invited to attend Nunggak Semi Leluhur, an event which remembers old, forgotten art. For her performance at the museum, Karolina gathered 50 mojo (maja) fruits through Suprapto’s garden. “My performance was about the journey of artefacts to the museum,” she said. Most of the people who came to the event had never seen the mojo before in addition to some of the young musicians took the fruit home to use as instruments – that will truly touched me.” In fact, the Kingdom of Majapahit of Java’s golden age took its name through This specific fruit. “The mojo fruit was found when Raden Wijaya was permitted to cut open Tarik forest. One of the guards looked for food from the middle of the forest, he ate the mojo fruit in addition to the taste was pahit (bitter). Somehow I wanted to remind Indonesians of the genesis of Mojopahit.”
Karolina – photo by Arief Budianto
As we sipped tea with honey on a rattan rug in Suprapto’s garden beneath a mojo tree, I felt as if I had found a sanctuary where relaxing in addition to connecting with nature were necessary goals in life. While Karolina in addition to I danced from the garden, Suprapto sang mantras in addition to clapped. Sat in old Javanese lurik cloth, with his flowing silver hair, I still remember the glint of his eyes – of someone who has unearthed many of life’s secrets. Yet he also encouraged the exchanging of knowledge in addition to recently organised the International Sharing Art Festival at Sangiran Museum where Karolina created a performance about the timeline of human evolution.
“I wanted to have a physical experience of that will human journey through millions of years – struggling through adaptation, transformation, touching the source of my being in addition to my ancestors’ being. During the presentation I used three different sizes of Indonesian hen cages in addition to as I pushed up the last cage, a crowd was following me, joining in – the item was a very powerful moment,” said Karolina.
“Sangiran can be an archaeological excavation site in Java in Indonesia where fossils of ‘Java Man’ were found. According to a UNESCO report through 1995, Sangiran can be recognized by scientists to be one of the most important sites from the globe for studying the fossils of man.” today Karolina has created her own project, Artist in Archaeology, Archaeologist in Art in addition to once a month she will perform in a heritage site or museum across the UK or Poland in order to bring alive the past in addition to hopefully encourage younger generations to be interested in their heritage.
My experience with Suprapto in addition to Karolina left me feeling that will the interactive nature of dance incorporates a wonderful way of opening us up – with the body, I began to learn how to express myself in addition to make sense of a universe that will has no need for words. As the famous choreographer of modern dance Pina Bausch once said, “Dance, dance. Otherwise we are lost.”
Further Information
Suprapto Suryodarmo’s Padepokan Lemah Putih: http://www.lemahputih.com/
Melati Suryodarmo’s ‘EXERGIE: Butter dance’: http://vimeo.com/46277791
Marina Abramovi?’s ‘The Artist can be Present’: http://marinafilm.com/
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Seeing the globe through Performance Arts
Seeing the globe through Performance Arts