Indonesia

Kartika Affandi: 9 Ways of Seeing | Interview with videomaker Christopher Basile (via Culture 360)

A new documentary film tells the story of visionary artist Kartika Affandi, daughter of Indonesia‘s most celebrated painter, and a groundbreaking personality in her own right. On the poster for the documentary: “Kartika: 9 Ways of Seeing”, the smiley face of a blithe elderly woman pops up from an opened mouth, bringing to mind the screaming

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Austrian singer collaborates with ‘angklung’ musicians at Indonesian Cultural Night in Vienna (via The Jakarta Post)

Angklung musicians featuring Austrian soprano Maria Theresia Gruber staged the song Bengawan Solo at the Indonesian Cultural Night event held at Vienna’s Weltmuseum on Tuesday evening. Antara reported that the young soprano also sang “Im Prater blühn wieder die Bäume” (The trees are blooming again in the Prater), accompanied by angklung tunes. Indonesia Cultural Night

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Sohieb Toyaroja

Semar in the eyes of Sohieb Toyaroja (via The Jakarta Post)

For artist Sohieb Toyaroja, Semar is his favorite jester in Javanese mythology because the character is divine and very wise. Semar, one of four famous punakawan (jesters), has three sons: Petruk, Gareng and Bagong. Each has a different form, representing different philosophical characteristics of human beings. In Javanese wayang (shadow puppetry) stories, Semar is portrayed as a powerful figure,

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Indonesian Cinema

Beyond the Boxoffice: On the Cultural Relevance of Indonesian Cinema (via Cinema Poetica)

One might argue that we are entering the new golden era of Indonesian cinema. For the first time in the history of post-Reformation cinema, in two consecutive calendar years, the boxoffice top ten are fully dominated by films with more than one million viewers. In 2016 Anggy Umbara’s Warkop DKI Reborn: Jangkrik Boss! Part 1 took the pole position

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Citra Sasmita

Citra Sasmita captures the Indonesian contemporary art spotlight (via Life As Art Asia)

The most significant display of contemporary art on the island during 2015 featured many of Bali’s finest artists exhibiting side-by-side with emerging talent. Violent Bali – Bali Art Intervention #1, opened at the Tony Raka Art Gallery, Ubud in November presenting eighty-five works raising issues such as identity, gender and cultural conflicts, and the New Order regime

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radar-bali-1928
Walter Spies, c. 1936

Documentation, Restoration, and Repatriation? Reflections on a dance film screening for the ‘Bali 1928’ project (via New Mandala)

Bali 1928 is an ongoing international and interdisciplinary project established by American ethnomusicologist Edward Herbst in 2002 to “research, find, understand, document, explain, restore, re-release, and repatriate the first published recordings of music in Bali along with rare film footage and photographs of musicians and dance-drama performances from the 1930s”. With support from the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre’s Regional Mobility

Documentation, Restoration, and Repatriation? Reflections on a dance film screening for the ‘Bali 1928’ project (via New Mandala) Read More »

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