Kerensa Consciousness

The last time I saw Kerensa Johnston perform Balinese dance was on the final night of the Gathering of the Gamelan at Woodford Festival 1998-99. She came off the stage after presenting a riveting performance of Topeng Tua. I said to her - "That was the most authentic performance of Balinese dance by an Australian dancer I have ever seen. It was impossible to tell who was dancing behind the mask." Kerensa has been studying and performing a variety of dance and theatre forms, including traditional Balinese and Sumatran dance for many years.

In 1999 Kerensa left Australia on her way to Europe to attend a very unique and exciting Theatre Workshop in Europe. She stopped off in Bali on the way for a short visit, but as has happened to many of us before her, found that as she stepped off the plane in Bali her feet stuck to the ground.

Cancelling her trip to Europe Kerensa settled in Bali for a while. Not long after arriving she started sending messages about dance projects she was undertaking in Ubud area. Her first project was the establishment of Indian dance classes and a dance exchange workshop every week at Yayasan Polosseni in Peliatan.

Not long afterwards, news arrived of a "kreasi baru" which Kerensa had choregraphed with a group of local dancers and musicians for the solo exhibition of fellow AIAA member Victoria Cattoni at Seniwati Gallery in Ubud. Kerensa's latest news is of her involvement with her establishment of MAI - and the new Festival of Contemporary Theatre being established as a regular annual event in Ubud.(Ed)

Below are reproduced two reports from Kerensa about her latest projects:

Click here for Interlace/Dissolution

Festival of Contemporary Theater

Ubud's first festival of contemporary theater got off to a great start. The response from both the artistic community and the public was positive with artists hoping for future festivals with creativity and ideas already starting to flow for next year's event. As it turned out, the festival wasn’t just about contemporary theater but included a variety of performance styles from contemporary theater, modern theater, performance art and the latest rage in Indonesia - the musicalisation of poetry.

None of the pieces were light - but were directly dealing with political and social issues and the gap between the rich and the poor of this country. This was quite ironic considering that the venue for the Festival, the Sai Sai Bar in Ubud, is a venue whose target customers are tourists.

For three months a groups of artists from various cultural and artistic backgrounds, students and observers working under the name MAI (media apresiasi independen) worked to create this festival, that would give groups an opportunity to perform and try new works in the cultural mecca of Ubud. Ubud is a village of arts, culture, dance and music which has in turn become a global village through the impact of tourisim. Outside of the tourist culture, Balinese traditional culture remains genuinely strong and unaffected by outside influences. On the rim of Balinese culture is another growing community made up of expatriates from overseas and Indonesians from other provinces who have made their home in Ubud.

Ubud has a reputation throughout the world and Indonesia as being a place that nurtures, inspires and supports artists. Dozens of young artists from throughout Indonesia arrive in Bali each year with the dream of selling their paintings to the world-renowned art galleries in Ubud. Yet the reality is that many end up selling "pretty" paintings in the market for art shop owners and often fall into a rut.

This was how S.E. Dewantoro (Gepeng) came to be in Ubud. He too ended up selling pretty, commercial paintings in the Ubud market rather than his more angst-ridden and political works. He had travelled with an enthusiasm and ideas that were quickly taken up by his many friends in Ubud. In his first four months in Ubud, he managed to rally his friends to organise performances and exhibitions in public spaces, sometimes successfully and sometimes coming up against problems from the local Banjar. These events included performance art and poetry on the Tjampuan Bridge, the parking lot of Monkey Forest and Tepi Api River in Pejeng. This core groups of artists were Gepeng, Helmi Y Haska, Uret, Haris.

It was a movement to take art out of the usual spaces and away from the usual audience and take it to the people..even with the failed performance in Monkey Forest which was stopped by the local banjar, it seemed to the group to be a success because a dialogue had begun and questions had been asked. For Gepeng this was a five minute exhibition.

Following that event, an exhibition was held in the house of Uret in the village of Pejeng. Although close to Ubud, Pejeng is a world of its own, still very traditional, still very beautiful and life is quiet and simple.

The audience was an unusual mix of Pejeng locals, curious at what their foreign neighbours were doing (Uret being from Java), the usual gallery goers and expatriates. This event featured an installation featuring a sick Indonesia in a hospital bed with fluids from IMF and other countries flowing in as a quick fix to the ailing parts of Indonesia. Along with this there were paintings, performance art in a toilet, and poetry. Bram Brawida had joined this group and charted the journey from Ubud to Pejeng with slight changes in the environment that only local people would notice.

Painter, poet and director Agus Agni Ardi performing
at the Pondok Pekak poetry nights

The next event organised by this team of artists was Poetry readings at Pondok Pekak Library near the football field in Ubud. Poets from Denpasar came to read poetry including I Wayan Sunartha and at the end of the event Uret performed a piece by Rendra with a group of young people from Puri Pejeng. The group called itself Teater Puri Pejeng and despite limited lights and costumes this group of young people captivated its audience and was my inspiration for seeing a theater festival happen in Ubud.

At this time Sai Sai Bar in Monkey Forest Rd - a regular pick up joint and reggae bar had just been sold and the new owner Janet Moloy was in the process of giving its image a make over. It seemed like a good venue with a reasonable stage and lighting, and given that Ubud had absolutley no tourists, it seemed to make sense to hold an event that would attract those that live in Ubud. Janet was supportive of the idea and Gepeng rallied together his friends to start having meetings about the problems of bringing theater to Ubud. This group of people became MAI and was made up of visual artists, one foreigner (myself), a hotel worker and a print shop worker.

That initial meeting proved that there was a need within the community for theater and secondly it was a chance for these artists to work together on a common goal rather than as single factors selling their works at the markets and then trying to get a spot in a serious gallery. It seemed a chance for these arists to create an identity and event for themselves which didn’t exist in the shadow of toursim or Balinese culture. Bram Brawida and myself met with Janet Moloy and started drawing up plans for the space.

The group of artists that worked on this project were the well known painter A.S. Kurnia who became our adviser, curious to see how the event would develop. The others included Bram Brawida as translator and lighting, David S. as stage manager, myself - Kerensa Johnston as the Secretary and publicty manager for MAI, S.E. Dewantoro (Gepeng) as the chairperson and Event Director, Alwi as sound, Helm Haska as the event co-ordinator, Ketut Widdhi as transport co-ordinator and Abdul Aziz as an assitant to everyone. Every Monday night we would meet and often artists from Denpasar and around Ubud would call in to give advice and see how the festival was going. I wanted to bring to the event a structure and organisation that would support these groups in the best way possible, lobbying for fees and sponsorship.

Eventually we received sponsorship from Honda, Darma Printing, Ibah Resort, Ubud Raya Café and UD Seni Warna Art Supply Shops and of course spectacular help and support from Sai Sai Bar who was the event’s major sponsor.

Culturally there were several different views of what "contemporary" meant and what "festival" meant. For many in the committee the word festival meant that only the best groups could perform whilst for me it meant infrastructure, an open space and support structure where anyone could perform allowing the festival to create its own standards. From what I had read, contemporary theater was dead in Bali and anyone that performed using that tag was usually the same groups and artists and hadn’t really changed or developed over the last few years. This remained a point of argument until the very end although the team always worked well and kept the show running.

Eventually Gepeng and I arranged a meeting with a group of young writers and directors from Udayana University in Denpasar. Here we found out that there were events for contemporary theater such as the STKIP Contemporary Theater Festival which happens in Singaraja every two years. This event would happen in February prior to the Mai Festival. Once a year there is a competition held at the Arts Centre between all the modern theater groups in schools and universities.

Udayana holds its own mini festival of theater each year as well. The situation for new and upcoming groups seemed futile. To particpate in STKIP or Udayana festival you need to be invited so that leaves your only option being to compete. We decided to make MAI open and it was the quality and the difference in the works at the MAI Festival which made it a success.

In terms of the word "Contemporary" (in Bali, not the rest of Indonesia) the term seemed more to denote performance that is not traditional as opposed to the style of theater. One of the comments made by one of these young writers, was that most of the contemporary theater performances he had seen were almost the same as what they were five years ago. When I look back on some of the MAI performances, the standard was often much higher than the performances of many of Bali’s world famous artists. And certainly the concept in these works, the voices of these young people, are voices that are relevant and need to be heard.

The event was opened with a performance by Teater Seribu Jendela from the kampus in Singaraja. This group performed a piece that included video art, installation, movement and voice used as the beginning of a year-long project which draws focus to the poverty and starvation throughout Indonesia. The piece itself confronted its audience who were in the middle of eating a luscious meal..

The piece started with a video of a starving child and four performers sitting at a table in various forms of traditonal dress - Balinese, Islamic, a farmer.. and all stuffing their faces with food. Made conscious of their gluttony by wailing voices, these four proceed to wander through the audience collecting and asking for a spoonful of boiled rice from each of the tables. This rice would then be purified through ritual and a grain would be sent to recipients throughout Indonesia and in return the group would receive a bag of rice which would then be distributed to the downtrodden peoples of Indonesia. The piece encompassed the whole audience and finished in the street of Monkey Forest.. sending out these performers to all parts of Indonesia with their message, whilst the rice began its three day process of drying and purification at the front of the restaurant. Those that followed the performance to the front were moved to tears with the integrity and spirit of this performance. It was a shocking, beautiful, moving and simple piece in a town whose artists are largely in the business of creating only beautiful images distorted from reality.

The second performance of that night was AAA Stduio performing Nyanian Angsa - Swan Song by W.S. Rendra in English and Indonesian. The piece was the story of a prostitiute who is dying of Syphillis and is turned away by her doctor, her brothel and her church all in the same day. She eventually dies having spent her final night with Jesus. The group was from Ubud.

The Sunday night featured Teater Galon, a new group like AAA Studio that was formed, specifically to be a part of this festival. The group performed a new work by young writer Acmad Saichu Imran called 'Campah' - 'Uselss' a piece that was written in direct response to the events that have happened in Indonesia in the last two years since reformation. The main character is a crazy girl who finds bones beside one of the many monuments that represent Indonesia’s history and asks the question "Whose land is this?". In reality it implies whose bones are these? She meets a man who is unsure of his role in society and confused by the thoughts in his head.. is he crazy, is he a reformist or is he a provocateur? No-one knows and will never know until the pages of history are re-opened and examined thoroughly.

Posti performed poetry to music which included the works of W.S. Rendra and Iwans Fals. Posti is known in the underground music and poetry scene for performing music and poems that push for social action and political reform. The musicalisation of poetry is a style of performance which is becoming very popular throughout Indonesia.

POSTI from Denpasar performing their Musicalisation of Poetry

The final night presented possibly the highest standard of performance of the festival, with Bali Experimental Teater from Negara performing 'Ringsek' - 'Crushed' by nanoq da Kansas, and Teater Orok performing Kembang Api by Butuet Kertha Redjasa.

Bali Experimental Teater would have to be at the forefront of the contemporary theater movement led by writer and director nanoq da Kansas. Ringsek was a piece a about a man 'Parno’, who is confused by the indoctrination, industrialisation, poverty and devastation in his country. He doesn’t turn up to work for four weeks and eventually Pak Kades searches for him and cajoles him through indoctrination and brainwashing to return to work. Images in this piece were strong and powerful, Pak Kades washing Parno’s hair on stage, the dragging of a sack weighted with soil representing the weight of his life. In the audience were fifty factory workers from Janet Molloy's silver factory who had been trucked in for the last night of the festival. They had never seen anything like it before and seemed to relate to the performance. At the end of the porformance for the first time in three days, the audience hooted and cheered for BET.

Following BET, Teater Orok performed a script by one of Indonesia’s most well known playrites Butet Kertha Redjasa. The piece "Kembang Api" directed by Bejo Trimis Panto is about party which is held with feasting and dancing while millions of people are starving...This piece also seemed to draw inspiration from ritual or a style of performance that communicated well across cultures. The players shouted for a party, yet slowly the reality dawned upon them that there is no reason to party in this country, bodies were shot down and as they fell they called the names of the different provinces facing problems such as Lombok, Aceh, Timur, Maluku.

For the Indonesians that attended the festival, Bali Experimental Teater was the performance which touched their hearts and yet for the foreigners who watched the performances (and generally speaking had limited Indonesian language skills), the piece that most moved them was Kembang Api. Most of the performers were young and had never been a part of such a festival before, no-one had ever performed in a bar with a such a mixed audience - educated Indonesians, factory workers, tourists with no Indonesian and expatriates with limited Indonesian. It was an interesting and challenging event for all those that particpated and the response was more than positive.

The conditions were good for the artists and the lighting board amazing. Some of the groups brought lighting along with them - dimmer boards made out of ordinary lamp dimmers, and lighting fixtures made out of paint tins and the focus controlled with cardboard tubes. It was an amazing and cost-effective innovation.

For next year's event, MAI would like to get back to its roots, bringing theater to more unusual spaces; bringing theater to the audience as well as having performances at SAI SAI Bar. We would also like to see workshops happen here as well, especially in the areas of arts management and marketing. One of the marketing problems that we had was that none of the groups got their information to us until a week before the festival happened.

For further information in English contact Kerensa Johnston at:
Email: kerensavan@hotmail.com
For information in Indonesian contact Gepeng (S.E. Dewantoro) at: Email: g.gepeng@mailcity.com
For information about Seribu Jendala contact:
Email:rima3@lovemail.com

Press Release about MAI in Indonesian

MAI (media apresiasi independen) akan menyelenggarakan sebuah Festival Teater Kontemporer : dimana ini adalah pagelaran yang pertama kali diadakan di Ubud. Festival ini berskala kecil dan karenanya lebih di fokuskan untuk menarik minat para pelaku teater pada lapisan di bawah ( pemula) dan diharapkan dapat menciptakan suatu forum dialog antara pelaku teater dan pengamat.

Pagelaran tsb. akan menampilkan kelompok-kelompok teater yang sudah mapan maupun kelompok kelompok pemula. Diantaranya Teater Galon dari Negara dengan tampilan teater musik rebana dan musik meleyu. Bali Experimental Teater (BET) dari Negara akan membawakan gaya mereka yang unik yaitu teater gerak yang menggunakan simbol-simbol sebagai sarana dialog kepada penonton yang mana mewakili aspek gelap dari sifat.

Unit teater Kampus Seribu Jendala STKIP dari singaraja akan membawakan " Proyek Nasi Sengauk" . Pengarang Hardirman. Nasi Sengauk dari makna inilah pertunjukkan dengan media, seni rupa, seni tari, seni musik, video film bergerak ke aksi sosial. Proyek ini berlangsung selama satu tahun di berbagai tempat di Indonesia, pertama proses pengumpulan, pencucian dan pengeringan nasi akan dilakukan pada MAI Festival Teater Kontmporer di Ubud. Kedua Proses, pemberian energi pada Nasi Sengauk di Singaraja. Proses Ketig, proses penyebaran nasi sengauk ke seluruh Indonesia, proses keempat proses penampungan beras dari seluruh Indonesia. Proses kelima, proses pembagian beras kepada yang berhak, fakir, yang tertindas yang sengsara, dll. sedangkan kelompok-kelompok teater pemula yang akan tampil antara lain adalah AAA Studio yang manampilkan " Nyanyian Angsa - Swan Song" adalah adaptasi dari karya W.S. Rendra. Tampilan ini dimainkan dalam Bahasa Inggris dan Bahasa Indonesia dan mengutamakan gerak, tarian, wayang kulit dan instalasi.

Teater OROK dari Denpasar juga akan membawakan " Nyanyian Angsa", karya WS Rendra yang akan dibawakan dalam bentuk lain ,dengan musikalisasi puisi.

TENTANG MALAM MEDIA DAN MUSIK POSTI

Pada hari Rabu tanggal 15 Maret 2000 mulai jam 19.00 WITA akan diselenggarakan malam media bertempat di SAI-SAI BAR, sebagai malam promosi bagi group-group yang akan tampil. Juga pada malam itu akan di undang wartawan, seniman, pemerhati seni dan masyarakat umum untuk melihat sejauh mana dan apa yang akan ditampilkan pada festival teater. Dan acara ini akan di meriahkan oleh POSTI yang akan membawakan musikalisasi puisi dari Jim Morrison yang terdapat dalam antologi puisinya "American Prayer" serta puisi dari WS Rendra serta lagu-lagu Iwan Fals. POSTI juga akan mengisi acara untuk festival teater ini. Selain itu akan tampil pula teman-teman dari PLANET BAMBOO yang akan membawakan world musik dan pembacaan puisi oleh penyair dari Denpasar, Ubud, Singaraja, Negara dll

Untuk segala Informasi telp 62 361 975 869
Untuk booking di Sai Sai Bar telp 62 361 976 698

Kerensa and Gepeng

Kerensa Johnston is a member of the Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance