A total of 81 students participating in the 9th Youth Cultural Forum attended the workshop of Introduction to Indonesian Culture, which includes gamelan, Javanese dance and traditional song of Indonesia. The activity lasted for two days, 25-26 May 2011, at the Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri Cultural Center (PKKH).
The Workshop Coordinator, Drs. Eddy Pursubaryanto, M. Hum., said that the participants are given basic general knowledge about the gamelan and Javanese dance. In addition, participants were also introduced to a number of traditional songs from across the archipelago.
Eddy conveyed that the 81 participants in the workshop were divided into three groups, comprising 22 people in the Javanese Gamelan workshop, 46 people in the Javanese dance workshop, and 13 people in the Indonesian traditional song workshop. "The participants are trained on how to play the gamelan, traditional Javanese dance, and sing traditional songs. From this workshop, the students are directed to create a new piece of work entitled Asean Rainbow. This creation is the result of collaboration between groups of gamelan, dance, and song," he explained on Wednesday (25/5).
Asean Rainbow will be staged in the closing ceremony of The 9th Youth Cultural Forum, Friday (27/5). The students will be presenting performances from one episode in the story of Ramayana, the Rama Tambak. "Rama Tambak tells the story of how Rama’s soldiers working shoulder to shoulder with each other, work together to reach the dreams, which is to build the pond (Tambak). We hope that the spirit of cooperation in this story can be taken as a lesson by students who are the future leaders of Asean. It provides exprience to cooperate and perform the dialogue through culture, in this case is the art," says the lecturer of English Literature Department.
Kok Pei Shi, one of the Javanese gamelan workshop participants from Nanyang Technology University, admitted that he is happy to participate in the workshop. He is very interested in learning Javanese gamelan. "This is my first time studying and playing one of the Javanese gamelan musical instruments. It was fun, although initially I was a little bit bemused. However, I am interested in learning it further," he explained.