My sister Ruci Ameria forwarded me an e-mail from her friend who wrote her 1st time experience of watching KHURUKSETRA’s performance at Singapore. Since this is only an opinion written on facebook.com by my sister’s friend, the name of the author will be kept anonymous. Enjoy!
I went to Indoverse 2009, an event by PPI Singapura. It was an event of Indonesian cultural performances, although mostly the performances were pop band performances. Then came one rather unforgettable show of “art”—the Khuruksetra (gosh, I had to look through my gmail to get the spelling right).
I guess you can google the group to find out more about it (which I am too lazy to do). But basically, from the one performance I saw, the group seems to be a modern art group that strives to cross traditional boundary and bring performing art to a different level. Different, uh huh. Before the performance started, the MCs introduced the performance as one on “the conflict of love”. Love. Right.
The lights were off. The stage was partly covered with black cloth. Three performers sat on stage. Their heads down. I think they were playing with guitars and a bass. Two screens on the wall showed the black and white video; what the video was about I’m not so sure either. The performers on stage, still heads down, started playing. Dum dum dum (I know a guitar doesn’t sound like that, but the whole thing sounds like that).
Then there was a man whose head was hidden under farmer’s triangular-shaped straw hat, holding sapu lidi in each hand, came silently from one side of the stage. To me, this guy resembled a barong. Though his head was hidden, I felt like I could see his eyes wide open. Dum dum dum.
A shriek broke out of that triangular-shaped straw hat. The creature went into spasms. More shrieks. My ears were hurt. The video on the screens continued playing a black-and-white montage of incomprehensible things. Then the video showed the creature, with sapu lidi on each hand, running through the woods. And approached a cow. Yes, a cow. I was thinking, is the love conflict between this creature and the cow? What the…
So the rest of the show just continued with shrieks, more shrieks, more spasms, an effort of gymnastic talent showcase, and the video that continued to show the love story of this creature and a cow (haha, I’m joking). The creature finally took off the straw hat only to show black-painted face. More shrieks. The video showed someone wrapped in long cloths, and a cow, I think the cow’s insides. Morbid. Yeah.
And it ended. Clap clap clap.
I just sat there. I told my friend who sat besides me, “I can’t appreciate that show.” He said the same thing earlier, and went off to the restroom in the middle of the show. I lingered on my seat, still watching this art performance that I could not comprehend.
Filed under: Khuruksetra
