June/July, 1998
No. 035/VI/98
cover story
What future is there for
Bali's modern theatre
scene?
Warung Society
Bali has its own history of
communal philosophising
and coffee-drinking
Renaissance
Twenty years of Bali's
Festival of the Arts
beyond
bali
Sumbawa's
Secrets
Photographs from
Kuang Amo
regular
features
Dangerous
Times
Orchestrating a
cremation in Ubud
Home Grown
A preview of
the Quicksilver Pro
Adventure
Getting over a fear
of diving
Health and Beauty
Foreign aid for
optic
health
Books
The Painted Alphabet
reviewed
Food
Two boutique hotels,
two top chefs
Fiction
'Our Moon'
by Mas Ruscitadewi
advertising index for
Bali Echo web site
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Since its establishment
twenty years ago, Bali’s Festival of the Arts has primarily showcased the
‘traditional’ performing arts - by which is meant works based on Hindu epics or
Balinese folk tales. The event has afforded its audiences little insight, therefore, into
the world of modern theatre, which every year battles to gain a place in some small corner
fo the Festival’s program. This official, Indonesia-wide Year of Arts and Culture,
and the Festival’s twentieth anniversary is no exception. Andre Sjahreza took on to
explore backstage of the event and discovered that, despite its current state of decline,
throughout the nineteen eighties modern theatre was highly popular in Bali.
The performing arts scene in Bali is thriving. Traditional peformances - such as legong, barong and calon arang, are integral to both the tourism entertainment industry and local religious life. Whether you are in a hotel or touring the countryside, it is highly likely that you will encounter a Balinese dance or theatre performance some time during your stay.
But it is a completely different matter when it comes to performances of contemporary theatrical works. Nowadays, modern theatre is rarely performed, and when shows do take place they are often poorly publicised. They are therefore usually attended only by those in the know - a small clique of enthusiasts whose presence compounds the problem by imbuing events with a sense of exclusivity. The appeal of modern theatre, it seems, only extends to a tiny ‘culture vulture’ elite.
But the meagre audiences that modern theatre now attracts belies the genre’s former popularity. On establishing itself in the early 1980s, modern Balinese theatre, which is secular in nature and draws heavily on Western theatrical traditions - quickly developed a broad appeal and became what many critics refer to as ‘art for the masses’.
Sanggar Putih (the White Troupe) was one of Bali’s first contemporary theatre troupes, and in its early days boasted as many as 100 young actors. Its broad membership base allowed the prolific troupe to generate as many as 3 - 4 performances a month. But time proved the enormous membership too much for the troupe, and Sanggar Putih was forced to cull its membership to 30 or so by the mid-1980s. Sanggar Putih remained, however, responsible for catalysing a boom in modern theatre, as its establishment had inspired that of a number of other sanggars (troupes) such as Teatre Agustus, Teater Kebun, Teater Bayam, Sanggar Minum Kopi, Sanggar Nyuh Gading, Sanggar Posti as well as several campus-based troupes such as the Arts Faculty’s Kluster, Medicine’s Hypocrates, Economic’s Equilibrium and the Law Faculty’s Yustisia. Even some high schools established their own troupes such as High School Number One’s Teater Angin, High School Number Three’s Teater Tiga and High School Number Seven’s Teater Antariksa.
Beginning in the early eighties, each troupe performed frequently, and by the middle of the decade Bali had a modern theatre scene to rival cultural capitals Yogyakarta and Bandung. But by the time the nineties began this had died away considerably as troupes folded one by one and their members dispersed. Connections that had been built up in the staging of modern theatre festivals broke down too, and as a tight-knit community began to fray networks dissolved and troupes became ever more distanced from one another. The several troupes that survived kept to themselves staging only infrequent preformances for small audiences. Slowly, what had once been a tremendously popular theatre scene seemed to go into hybernation.
It is difficult to know exactly how and why this came about. When some of Bali’s prominent theatre figures are invited to consider the question, four main themes emerge. Firstly, that of professionalsm in the modern theatre scene. Secondly, that of ‘community spirit’ - or the extent to which networks among troupes function well. Thirdly, ‘contextual’ nature of modern works, or how they relate to social realities of the day. And fourthly, support and lack thereof by the arts officialdom.
Above:
In its heyday, Sanggar Putih experimented with English plays in Balinese costume.
Here, Kadek Suardana plays Macbeth.
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