Sunday, September 18, 2005

Indonesian Arts Festival 2005

Yesterday I went to IAF 2005 in Kallang Theatre with Vivy, all thanks to Vivy who was willing to accompany me and to Copper who weeks ago sent me an sms asking me if I was interested in watching. He actually really did his job, he really made sure that I got my tickets. I actually didn't watch the first IAF in 2003, but I remembered clearly that it was staged on the day when I came back to Singapore after some time of soul-searching back at home. Anyway, yesterday I actually thought that it was gonna start late, being it an Indonesian thing, so me and Vivy decided to just take our time We would actually have been on time if not for the jam in Orchard. Well what to expect, Orchard + Saturday night. Arrived a few minutes late and the show actually started on time. I actually saw Dendry but didn't call out to him because he seemed busy. Saw Copper as we got in, well as Vivy put it at least we already "setor muka" to him (show our face). He told us to quickly come in since we were late. We also met Malvin who ushered us in. We were seated at the upper level and the show had already began. There was this, well at that time I could only call it as a monster though it was actually called Barong, anyway I just found it to be quite scary and it turned out it was only Etu inside the costume *sigH*

IAF 2005 is staging Cindelaras and nope it's not the Indonesian version of Cinderella. Cindelaras is a folklore and they turned it to a musical with a touch of pop and all the things that kids these days listen (I suppose) I honestly don't really know what Cindelaras is all about. In short it's about this kingdom where the king lived with his queen and concubine. There's this spiritual healer / advisor who wanted to have the power to run the kingdom. Through the concubine, he managed to get the queen to be thrown away from the kingdom. The queen then lived in the jungle and gave birth to Cindelaras, rightful heir to the throne. As he grew older, he just had this feeling that there's something more than live in the jungle. So as fate it he got out from the live in the jungle and ventured out and he reached his kingdom, which was now in chaos. The king hold a competition to elect a new prime minister. In the end we saw that Cindelaras fought his half brother in the competition. Of course Cindelaras won, the king discovered the truth, the queen was back and the spiritual healer and the concubine ran away. Pretty simple good-will-prevail story.

I found the whole thing to be quite interesting, though I found some of the items like the dances, songs, like the part when Cindelaras was describing his dream to be kinda too long and the very awful sound system didn't help. The sound system was bad and I wasn't the only one complaining this. The most interesting part of the whole musical for me was the Saman dance, it was pretty cool and I actually always want to do that since I was a kid The host, Arie and Desta, were funny. I suppose their reputation as funny hosts really made it easier for them to do this gig. They didn't even have to try that hard to entertain us. The guest stars are Bhumi band and Maliq & d'Essentials. Bhumi band is a Singapore based band, with all Singapore Malay members and only 1 Indonesian but it's enough to make them really sound like an Indonesian band. They brought 2 songs during the musical and I just couldn't help feeling how they really sound so Indonesian, they sounded a bit like Dewa or Padi. I wonder if there is truly an Indonesian sound or is this kind of sound just belong to the region? I also wonder if there is a truly Singapore sound?

Maliq & d'Essential closed the show and truly they were what the crowd was waiting for. I have to admit myself that they're the one who made me really interested in going. Honestly speaking, I don't really know the songs that they brought yesterday. I've only listened one of their song once (I think it was Terdiam) long time ago and I was truly impressed and yes they were that good. Indonesia do have so many talents. Again, too bad the sound sytems was so bad. I just got word that Vivy had sent me their songs to my gmail account. Vivy is very efficient and effective All and all the whole thing was pretty good. Knowing how difficult it must be to make such event come true though they couldn't devote their entire time for it, for all the practice and everything, the whole crew really deserved a thumbs up.

During the intermission, I saw, first it was Steven's back first, then I saw JTG and Arief and then Roy. After much waving and calling, Roy finally noticed me. He was there with his all-girls team Couldn't really see his sister clearly but why is it that I had a feeling that she's taller than Roy He seems to be doing pretty good, nice to meet him again, and yes it's been a long time since we last saw each other. He said that I looked exactly the same though I said "What do you mean? I'm skinnier" Well, I hope he meant that I still looked 18 Then Felis saw me and Vivy and we talked quite a bit. It's good to see her again, she told us about her little incident when she came back home recently, it was so like her Should really catch up with them actually. After the show finished, we quickly got home because I didn't want to get stranded in a middle of nowhere. Some people that we saw were Angelica (talked a bit to her), Antonius (Vivy was the one who recognize him), and then Nyile (good to see him again) and there was Rimbun too. A pretty interesting night, and all because copper asked that question. One should really ask, I suppose Too bad in the end didn't really get to talk to him and Dendry.

:) eKa @ 7:08:00 PM •