Put Your Hands Together

So it turns out Yogya's just as cultural as it's hyped up to be, and not just in a traditional sense. Edgy clothing designers (I spent an hour in a cool shop the other day after being caught in torrential rain), customised everything, street art, theatre, concerts, galleries. If it's arty it's here.

I've spent quite a bit of time the last couple of weeks exploring the edge of this edgy scene. After a trip with a mutual friend to the beach, I made friends with this guy Budi (which is just as well, because I had to spend four hours total on the back of his scooter on that trip) who invited me to a concert. The concert ended up being a clothing designer festival of sorts. You paid Rp8000 (approx. AU$1) entry, and got to wander around about a hundred different stalls filled with clothes designed by people in Yogya at obscenely low prices (e.g. 4 for Rp100K, approx AU$12.5). Then, when you were sick of that, you could mosey up to the actual stage and watch whichever suprisingly cool band was playing. This was great, because I was one of the tallest people in the audience, so got to see everything - big improvement on concerts in Australia.

One of the bands, The S.I.G.I.T, was pretty cool. The frontman had exquisitly long hair, and the lead guitarist played his electric with a violin bow at one stage.

The whole area was also filled with people who painted designs on shoes, and random, abstract art installations. All in all, complete win.

The next cool, arty thing I went to was completely accidental. While waiting for a play to start last week at Taman Budaya (Cultural Garden), my friend and I decided to kill some time and check out the gallery underneath. Art is better appreciated rather than explained, so I'll just post some photos for you to look-see. I will say though, I got the impression that there is a lot of repressed anger and sexuality in this city, and a fairly dark underground. Also, I got to meet one of the artists which was cool. Don't think I got a picture of his stuff, but he made really cool paintings with little plastic figurines and tiny clocks and stuff mooshed into the paint.

Anywho, pictures ahoy!!

Finally, for the purposes of this post anyway, I went to the above-mentioned play. Jejalan, the Streets, was a very abstract exploration into Indonesian street culture and life using interpretive dance and random soliloquis. It began with drinks, and everyone milling around in a big hall full of rolled up mattreses with feet sticking out the end while men on stilts walked around. Then people dressed as police ran in blowing whistles and ushered people to the sides, forming a "street" in the middle of the hall. This is where the actors took place, walking back and forth, dancing and moving in caricatures of every- and anybody who can be seen on a busy Indonesian street. It was moving, funny, and downright strange, and I loved it. There was corrugated iron, umbrellas, streetlamps. Megaphones, bargaining,I can't walk down a street here now without thinking of it.