The Cluster program part deux rolled on in 2005. I helped Yumi Umiumare editing her video. As compensation for that service, Yumi agreed to perform for my own work. With Yumi’s commitment on board, I didn’t take any chances to miss such an opportunity. I asked her to perform in her awe-inspiring Kimono costume plus white-masked make up a la Kabuki.
Yumi’s physical performance discipline is called Butoh (for more information about Butoh look here). I perceived the Butoh performance as rhythmically slow and demanding high concentration. Technically, this gave me an idea as a media artist: What would it look like to reverse back the rhythms of the performance during post-production.
When Yumi showed me the costume the day before, I remember fondly my memories of watching traditional theatre in Java called “kethoprak”. This is a style of traditional theatre where the story is more free-style (contemporary), instead of based on “pakem” (literally means given) of Mahabharata and Ramayana. Because it’s in contemporary style, it demands also a free-style costume – but not necessarily an elaborate costume - according to the story.
Of the various stories that the “kethoprak” group perform, my favourite show is “The Legend of Sanpek Engtay”. It is a tragedy of unrequited love between Sanpek and Engtay because of racism. It is a sugar-saccharine sweet story and has a highly predictable plot (it is celebrated I think, in similar stories all over the world, the English version being Romeo and Juliet).
There are many poignant moments in the show. My favourite one is the entrance of the heroine (Engtay) wearing an opulent dress. It’s like the energy of stage is completely enveloped by the grandeur of the costume.
Another one is the moment after Engtay’s death. Because of the grief of the loss of his lover, Sanpek follows his lover death by dying miserably – think of Heathcliff and Cathy of Wuthering Heights. It is written in the story that after the couple finally gets together through their death; they morph as a couple into a white butterfly!
What’s so great about this scene is that at the moment of the death scene, the actors escape through the trap door. And in the nick of time there is suddenly a butterfly flying on the stage. The audience gasped. I gasped. My sister who always went to the show with me gasped. Lights dim. End. We clapped tumultuously for the actors and left for home with a schmaltzy feeling.
So that’s the basic story of my work, Silkworm. However there are other things I needed to add. I needed another element in the video.
I am always interested in the experimental camera work of Andy Donovan. He likes to experiment with the positioning of the camera so as to produce unusual footage. There was some incredible footage that he took in Bedugul Botanical Garden in Bali, and I decided to integrate that into the work.
The music that I wanted to use had to have an ethnic flavour but it also had to have opposite rhythms and beats to Yumi’s Butoh performance. So I went back to the memory of my elementary school days, when I heard the Yapong dance music playing as a bunch of my school girlfriends did the dance. It is such a magical creation of the famous and successful Indonesian artist Post Homuos Bagong Kussudiarjo. I personally have a great deal of respect for his work.
The final work then was assembled and I enjoyed exercising the technical elements I described above. I always think of this work as a reflection of me as an artist from Indonesia.
CREDITS:
The media art is written, directed, and composed by Bambang “BB” Nurcahyadi
Performer: Yumi Umiumare
Videography: Andy Donovan
Camera: Richard Back
Lighting: Andrew Bailey
Still Photography: William Yang
Research: Maya Gunawan
Music: “Yapong Dance” by Bagong Kussudiarjo
Shot at The Black Box, Flinders Drama Centre, Flinders University Adelaide. Thank you to Ms Julie Holledge, the Head of Drama Centre.