Teater Garasi finds the perfect hybrid between local and global: Tarling.
The latest performance of Teater Garasi in Komunitas Salihara, Tubuh Ketiga (The Third Body) (october 12-13, 2010) was made as if it is a wedding ceremony. The audience must first exchange their tickets with souvenirs packed in a box, while the door towards the theatre was decorated with young coconut leaves, customary decoration for a Javanese wedding.
Stepping inside the theatre, an empty dais on which the bridal couples sits awaits, on the plank on top of it said “ Congratulations on Your New Life in the Globalisation Era.” On the other corner of the room, a solo organ band played tarling dangdut songs. “Welcome, for you, our honorable guests we have served boiled peanuts on the left side of the room,” said Gunawan Maryanto, one of Teater Garasi’s member who played the part as the MC. “ You can take picture, but please don’t use the flash lights,” said he.
The room seemed narrower than usual. After awhile, the backdrop that turned out to divide the room into two parts was opened. The audience was then brought to enter the atmosphere of a village during the harvest time.
For the following hour, the villagers told their life stories, the stories of ordinary and simple peasants, that intertwines with habits of the so-called modern life. A farmer took his own picture obsessively with the camera on his handphone, a woman stood in front of a blue screen spoke with slapstick tone and articulation that reminds us to a certain presenter of an infotainment program in a television channel.
Tubuh Ketiga (The Third Body) tried to illuminate the fluidity of the tarling dangdut music that could move in various space that seemed to be the opposite of the other, Agrarian and industrial, rural and metropolitan, traditional and modern. On the other side, the area hat made Tarling as one of its identity, Indramayu, was also considered as the “third space” that grows in the midst of numerous other areas that tried to implanted their own influences: Central Java, West Java, and Jakarta.
The mixture of globalization could also be sensed from the combination of music, for a while the popular Tarling song Kucing Garong was heard, and the next minute Bjork’s It’s not Up To Me was played from a tape.
The performance has similarities with the previous play by Teater Garasi, Je.ja.l.an, where the audience was plot to not see the show conventionally. The theater was transformed to become a huge stage that seemed alive and continuously changing. The audience must changed their seats and perspective, stand up, or give way to the actors.
In the end, the stage went dark. The backdrop that depicted the beautiful country side was pulled down, and the actors changed their costume to black outfit, while the speaker played a serious discussion between two men. They used unclear yet seemingly sophisticated and intricate jargon to talk about globalization and how the globalizing process should not be faced with a defensive attitude, and how the mindset of the villagers in indramayu who are open and confidence, is one of the best option in facing globalization.
Is it really? Well, probably, but the mixture of Globalization from Teater Garasi was surely pretty enjoyable.
The latest performance of Teater Garasi in Komunitas Salihara, Tubuh Ketiga (The Third Body) (october 12-13, 2010) was made as if it is a wedding ceremony. The audience must first exchange their tickets with souvenirs packed in a box, while the door towards the theatre was decorated with young coconut leaves, customary decoration for a Javanese wedding.
Stepping inside the theatre, an empty dais on which the bridal couples sits awaits, on the plank on top of it said “ Congratulations on Your New Life in the Globalisation Era.” On the other corner of the room, a solo organ band played tarling dangdut songs. “Welcome, for you, our honorable guests we have served boiled peanuts on the left side of the room,” said Gunawan Maryanto, one of Teater Garasi’s member who played the part as the MC. “ You can take picture, but please don’t use the flash lights,” said he.
The room seemed narrower than usual. After awhile, the backdrop that turned out to divide the room into two parts was opened. The audience was then brought to enter the atmosphere of a village during the harvest time.
For the following hour, the villagers told their life stories, the stories of ordinary and simple peasants, that intertwines with habits of the so-called modern life. A farmer took his own picture obsessively with the camera on his handphone, a woman stood in front of a blue screen spoke with slapstick tone and articulation that reminds us to a certain presenter of an infotainment program in a television channel.
Tubuh Ketiga (The Third Body) tried to illuminate the fluidity of the tarling dangdut music that could move in various space that seemed to be the opposite of the other, Agrarian and industrial, rural and metropolitan, traditional and modern. On the other side, the area hat made Tarling as one of its identity, Indramayu, was also considered as the “third space” that grows in the midst of numerous other areas that tried to implanted their own influences: Central Java, West Java, and Jakarta.
The mixture of globalization could also be sensed from the combination of music, for a while the popular Tarling song Kucing Garong was heard, and the next minute Bjork’s It’s not Up To Me was played from a tape.
The performance has similarities with the previous play by Teater Garasi, Je.ja.l.an, where the audience was plot to not see the show conventionally. The theater was transformed to become a huge stage that seemed alive and continuously changing. The audience must changed their seats and perspective, stand up, or give way to the actors.
In the end, the stage went dark. The backdrop that depicted the beautiful country side was pulled down, and the actors changed their costume to black outfit, while the speaker played a serious discussion between two men. They used unclear yet seemingly sophisticated and intricate jargon to talk about globalization and how the globalizing process should not be faced with a defensive attitude, and how the mindset of the villagers in indramayu who are open and confidence, is one of the best option in facing globalization.
Is it really? Well, probably, but the mixture of Globalization from Teater Garasi was surely pretty enjoyable.
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