Yogyakarta | Fri, August 28 2009 | 10:49 am
Ticktock, ticktock. The two figures wrapped in body-covering cloaks move like the hands of a clock, pending left and right, again and again.
One moves forward faster than the other on its elliptical circuit across the stage. At the inevitable meeting of the fast passing the slow, the experimental live music rises to a screech; the two bodies vibrate as if electrocuted. Hundreds of looped wires sewn onto the cloaks stand on end as they touch each other, disturbing the orderly impression of the ticking clock.
Then the music fades again to its former meditation-like rhythm and the figures slowly continue ticktocking in front of a huge screen reflecting ethereal colors from sunrise to sunset: The 24 minutes of the performance represent the 24 hours of a day.
“Is this still dance?” some members of the audience asked after the premiere of choreographer Fitri Setyaningsih’s piece Colours from the Inner Earth during the Regional Dance Summit at the Goethe-Institut Jakarta on Aug. 6.
“For me, it’s definitely dance,” the choreographer answers. “I just don’t set out from conventional dance movements, but from people’s daily lives. And their movements are influenced by visual and acoustic impressions.”
Fitri Setyaningsih is probably one of the boldest and most creative young choreographers currently working in Indonesia.
The 31-year-old classically trained dancer from Surakarta breaks all the rules she was taught during her education at the Indonesian High School of Arts (STSI) in the Central Java town of Surakarta, where she studied dance and choreography. Even the piece she developed for her final exams had to be heavily modified, because it didn’t follow the academic standards — although she did receive the highest mark for it.
The petite woman grew up with traditional dance and music in Surakarta and Central Java. As a nestling with four older brothers, Fitri often had to look out for herself, because her mother had to care for the whole family. Fitri started dancing at a very young age, managing to earn enough to pay some of her school fees by participating in traditional performances.
“Every story and every move we learned was according to the old myths, neglecting our own bodies and our own lives,” Fitri says.
“At some point I got the feeling that these highly technical dance movements destroyed all the other elements around them. That was when I started to incorporate simple items from daily life into my performances.”
Encouraged by her partner, writer Afrizal Malna, the young choreographer brought her first experimental piece to the stage in 2004: Jahitan Merah (Red Stitches) tells the story of a woman caught in her daily duties always serving others.
The choreography is still reminiscent of traditional Javanese dance, but then follows different expressions of distress and tension, trance and oblivion – crossing the border to an art performance.
The ambitious work had to take heavy flak from the dance establishment in Surakarta, which dismissed the piece as being “too lazy to move” or not being dance at all. The media and the public, however, showed a lot of interest in Fitri’s new ideas, giving her the motivation to continue.
“I think we really have to change our education system: We cannot always just rearrange the work of old masters, even if they are contemporary and from Pina Bausch and Martha Graham. We have to further develop our own style,” the energetic dancer says passionately.
To find her own style, Fitri tries to go back to the roots of dance and looks for possible movements in every activity she does, be it cooking, showering or playing with her six dogs. In so doing, she explores her own body in a natural way. Her aim is to redefine dance in a manner that better fits the human body.
In 2006, Fitri moved to Yogyakarta — to “change the atmosphere”, as she calls it. There, living in a new environment, she felt there were not as many limitations as before and started collaborating more and more with artists from different disciplines, such as the drama, visual arts, music and even psychology.
Her pieces reflect this interdisciplinary approach.
“Everybody working with me is involved in the evolution of a performance. Visual design, costumes and music are as important as the movements, while we create a new work together — I am just
giving the directions,” the choreographer says.
“Dancers usually just dance and expect the rest to be prepared for them. With me, they have to be ready to develop ideas themselves and also to lend a hand on the stage. That’s sometimes exhausting, but in the end, we all feel like a family.”
Fitri’s work is different every time, depending on whom she cooperates with. She says of her own work that none of her pieces is finished; everything is a work in progress. All her performances, however, feature surprising visual effects, creating transforming images with an installation-like character.
Audiences used to conventional dance performances have to be patient with this choreography: The movements are usually simple, monotonous motions, but often so intense that they feel like meditation. But any viewer who is open to interdisciplinary art will enjoy the unique blend the imaginative artist sets up on stage.
Obviously more and more people do, as the off-beat choreographer has in recent years been invited
to perform on big stages such as Gedung Kesenian, Taman Ismail Marzuki, Teater Salihara and Goethe-Haus in Jakarta. Kelola Foundation funded her two performance tours through several cities in Java and Sumatra.
Last year Fitri enjoyed her first guest performance in a foreign country, when she was invited to a festival for young choreographers in Venezuela.
“There, I became aware that Indonesian dance is on a really good level of quality,” the disciplined worker says.
“That’s why I believe that we can give dance many more forms and colors by liquefying it. We just have to dare.”
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