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Celebrating 50,000 years of peace

Inspirasi Festival Finale

by Cynthia Webb

Byron Bay, New South Wales, is the most easterly point in Australia. It is a true counter-culture town, with resonance from the seventies still thriving. Hippy values, long hair and dread locks, and rainbow-coloured clothing are part of the scene, along with the more serious values of peace marches, environmental consciousness and commitment to preserving the unique village character of the town. Respect for the indigenous people of Australia and for the land itself are not forgotten.

Byron Bay is also a surfing and diving centre, with almost year round sunshine, and is famous for its playful dolphins, whale watching, and for the beautiful cliff top and rainforest walking paths. It is a favorite stopover on the back-packer trail. Languages from all over the world can be heard in the bustling shopping streets, and there are also quite a few Indonesian born permanent residents.

“Byron”, as it is often called, attracts educated and creative people and is therefore brimming over with ideas and dreams of making the world a better place for all. Opportunities in profusion, out of proportion to the small size of the town are available to enjoy classes, workshops, entertainments, exhibitions and arts festivals. In many ways this small town is unique.

Byron Bay is also a powerful location in Aboriginal Dreamtime consciousness. The rising sun comes up first over Byron Bay, and the people like to think that the sun draws up the powerful energies from the land, carries and spreads them, as it makes its daily journey westward, across the vast Australian continent, before setting into the Indian Ocean.

On 16th and 17th July, citizens and the many weekend visitors could be forgiven for thinking they had been transported to Indonesia by the energies of the westward moving sun. It was the weekend of the grand finale concerts of a month of activities, in the Ïnspirasi Indonesian Arts Festival, organized by the Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance, which is based in the town

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Performers arrived from Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and from Makassar, Jogjakarta and Bandung, Indonesia - dancers, musicians, installation artists, singers. They joined local Indonesians and Australians in performing the cultural art forms of Indonesia. The performers included three groups of Australian school children – from St Finbarr’s Byron Bay, Scotts Head Public School and Macksville High- who are studying Indonesian language, traditional gamelan and/or dance. AIAA has sponsored several Indonesian musicians to share and teach their skills in schools.

A Balinese Kecak dance was performed for the first time in the NSW North Coast, as a joint project between Gold Coast and Byron communities, funded by Regional Arts NSW. The classic story from the Ramayana was re-enacted by dancers, clad in glittering red and gold, surrounded by the “cak, cak, cak, cak” chanters, wearing the sacred black and white checked “poleng” cloth.

Next day, in the Byron Peace Pole Bark under a bright blue sky stood colourful Balinese temple umbrellas and flags. There was a Balinese procession and dance performance featuring the Barong and Rangda, Sundanese Salendro music vibrated out across the sparkling ocean. Have the Byron Bay dolphins ever before heard such a sound? A traditional East Javanese “Beskalen” dance was performed by Alfira O’Sullivan. She is a young Sydney dancer who studied in Yogyakarta in 2003 along with her friend Jade Dewi. Then Sumatran drum rhythms vibrated the air, while Alfira and Jade Dewi, bewitched the audience with the beauty of their exotic costumes and graceful movements.

As the red sun went down and the sky darkened, a one and a half hour Wayang shadow puppet performance accompanied by live gamelan music, held an Australian audience in its spell, and often caused them to roar with laughter. Children gasped as a glowing 25 metre long white sea serpent, held aloft on sticks by black clad bearers, emerged from the night and seemed to swim through the performance space, as its smaller shadow made its appearance on the screen.This ancient and powerful art form held the Australian audience’s attention just as strongly as it does in an Indonesian village. For most of them it would have been their first experience of a Shadow Play, and they loved it. Although they were seated on the grass and the night was becoming very cold, they had forgotten their televisions waiting in their warm and comfortable lounge rooms. They stayed until the end and gave a long standing-ovation accompanied by yahoos and whistles of delight.

This exciting performance was the culmination of two weeks of hard work by a team of local artists and friends, led by the world renowned Indonesian artist Heri Dono, who was sponsored by the Australia Indonesia Institute(AII) as a major guest of the festival, and who narrated the dialogue in Bahasa Indonesia. Assisting Heri was the accomplished Australian Dalang Mike Burns, who threw in a lot of hilarious Aussie jokes, and as often happens in Indonesia, used the opportunity to include political and social comments.

The story was loosely based on the well-known Javanese story of Bima’s quest to find holy water (inner wisdom), and his eventual meeting under the sea, with Dewa Ruci. However this story also included a meeting with Nyai Roro Kidul, Goddess of the Southern Ocean and included the tragic December 2004 tsunami, an event of such enormous magnitude that it must surely become legend.

Other puppet characters included Semar and Petruk, Indra and Bayu, Kresna and Yudistira,, various turtles, fish, jellyfish, a huge sea dwelling dragon also forest creatures of all descriptions, including a koala, kangaroos, miaowing tigers, elephants, a pig and of course the angels which are always flying about, wherever Heri Dono is creating. In a touching and typical Dono interpretation, the souls of the hapless victims of the tsunami have been touched by Nyai Roro Kidul, and now have become angels, going back to God. In Heri’s work, angels are often the symbols of our soul or our dreams, or of the way we can use our imaginations to experience the unbounded and undefined hidden world.

This festival has been the latest and most ambitious project so far of Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance (AIAA), founded in 1998, with the aim of fostering friendship and understanding between the two countries through artistic and cultural activities. It is the inspiration of Ms Judith Shelley of Byron Bay, who has a great love for the richness of Indonesian culture, gained when she lived there for ten years.

At the time of the Reformasi of May, 1998 she felt compelled - guided by a greater power she says “ to become a channel” to create this non profit organization, which has grown from a one computer and a telephone enterprise, to a large and widely known arts organization with a permanent office and team of volunteer workers. There are members and friends of AIAA scattered about the world, and the internet website www.aiaa.org.au has made this possible.

Like a traditional dalang, everything going on within AIAA originates from or revolves around Judith Shelley. AIAA is her wayang presentation. With energy born of her commitment, she attracts characters (performers and co-workers) who perform and share their art, or assist with the volume of work. She seems to find the best way to organise these disparate people, their arts, talents, skills, and draws their best from them. Judith is always organizing many things at once, co-ordinating, delegating and continually coming up with unique new ideas. She is ready to respond to topical events which occur in Indonesia or Australia. Projects become ever more ambitious and exciting. The organization receives support from Garuda Airlines, the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs - Australia Indonesia Institute, the government Work for the Dole Program, Regional Arts of NSW as well as local area business and residents.

But in every Shadow Play, the negative energies must some times be confronted. Recent misunderstanding and even hysteria around a certain legal case enabled by a combination of media hype and general ignorance of the nation next door led to anti-Indonesian sentiments being openly expressed by some individuals and attacks on AIAA via their website Guest Book, because of its support and friendship for Indonesia. Is this how neighbours should behave? No, but even over back fences in suburbs and kampungs, neighbours sometimes do behave badly.

These occurrences were in stark contrast to the widespread, sincere demonstration of neighbourly sympathy, support and assistance for the neighbours, after the tragic earthquakes and the tsunami a few months earlier.

This perceived public uncertainty is the reason for the Inspirasi Festival having the sub-title: “Celebrating 50,000 years of Peace Between Australia and Indonesia”. The title is meant to affirm the positive aspects of our neighbourhood and its good history. So, as part of the “Inspirasi Festival” AIAA organized a discussion forum entitled “Neighbours: Who Needs Them?”.

Obviously it’s better if neighbours know and regularly communicate with each other, because they are inextricably linked by their proximity to each other, and they sometimes get caught up in one anothers’ story. Examples include the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, the Bali bombing, Australian peacekeeping forces involved in the birth of East Timor as a new nation, international people smuggling enterprises which used Indonesia as a stepping stone to Australia, and recent arrests of Australians in Indonesia on drug smuggling charges.

More positive connections between Australia and Indonesia are often overlooked – such as that there are tens of thousands of young Indonesians studying in Australia, and a lot of business activity between the two countries. Some Indonesian long term permanent residents of Australia have had difficulties because of the fear of terrorism and new security measures.

Ken McCloud, one of the speakers at the forum gave a brief history of Australia –Indonesia contact and mentioned how Australian Trade Unions of the time had supported the Indonesian fight for independence from Dutch colonial rule, and mentioned Australia’s support for Indonesia’s application for membership of the United Nations.

Common humanity recommends and geography demands that neighbours communicate and try to understand each other, stand by each other and stand up for what is right, whilst at the same time respecting the other’s differences and right to autonomy. Finding new and effective ways to facilitate this, is what AIAA is all about. AIAA is committed to breaking down the barriers (or should we say fences) and building understanding and considers the Arts the best possible foundation for working together to build the friendship.

AIAA also organised a photographic exhibition entitled “Portraits of Love”. It comprised pictures of the “campur” children born of the love between mixed couples, Australians and Indonesians who have fallen in love.

The Inspirasi Indonesian Arts Festival certainly demonstrated how good things can be between neighbours.