Moving History
Representation of Teater Kubur Performances from the New Order Regime to Post-Reformation in Indonesia
Ratu Selvi Agnesia and Dindon W.S.
Translated by Jonathan PARHUSIP1
This paper tries to explain the milestone of Teater Kubur2 in the span of 35 years (1983-2018). Particularly in some performances where Teater Kubur criticized all aspects of social, political, and cultural life as a form of resistance to the New Order regimes in three shows called Trilogi Besi (the Iron Trilogy): Sirkus Anjing (Dog Circus), Tombol 13 (the 13th Button), and Sandiwara Doll (Doll Theatrical Play). These three performances criticized the social and political conditions of the repressive New Order regime.
In the Reformation Era, Teater Kubur gave birth to the main performances, namely On-Off: Rumah Bolong (On-Off: Holey House) and Instalasi Macet (Crashed Installation). Teater Kubur began to develop representations in interpreting different socio-political conditions with a more universal theme, that is questioning lands and the environments, cities, urban communities of Jakarta, capitalism, fundamentalism, and globalization.
Teater Kubur is a kampung3 (urban slum neighborhood) theater. From an urban slum neighborhood theater, the theater can be a reflection of history that moves through every era. The works of the Teater Kubur chronologically are always contextual according to the history of the times of Indonesia in social and political conditions. The paper will discuss related issues raised by the Teater Kubur in some of its performances, particularly the issues of households, societies, and the nation.
How does the theatrical method of the body become the main aesthetic in the Teater Kubur performances as a method to “trace the unexpected possibilities”? How does Teater Kubur use objects to produce meanings? Finally, the most important essence of Teater Kubur according to Dindon is being able to give testimony and critical power. Theater can be a mirror, it can offer and turn on the critical power of the societies.
On-Off Plays and Home of Teater Kubur
Home is ourselves. Home is family. Home is a nation. Home is a culture. Home is our closest surroundings and home is our actual identity, whose ownership should not be taken by anyone. These are a few interpretations of various symbolic meanings of the staging of On-Off: Rumah Bolong (On-Off: Holey House) from Teater Kubur, directed by Dindon W.S.
Photo courtesy of Teater Kubur.
On 20 January 2016, a day before Teater Kubur and the team departed to India, they performed a rehearsal at their headquarters, the Kober Public Cemetery in Jatinegara, East Jakarta. In the middle of the cemetery, there is a vacant lot used by Teater Kubur for training. A cemetery, a space considered sacred and frightening for many Indonesians is used solely as a distinctive example where theater practitioners can practice. It could be said that in Indonesia only Teater Kubur dared to practice, learn, and perform in the cemetery.
The cemetery became a gathering place for the theater community and built a strong emotional bond with the local community. As evidenced by the presence of the neighborhood of Kober, it was dominated by women and children. Towards the showtime, they flocked around the show area. The unending rain from noon till the end of the show did not discourage the loyalty of the spectators who watched the show. They watched attentively, using umbrellas or plastic bags as their headgear while standing up or squatting. This particular scene from the Jakarta suburb community would not be found in elegant proscenium showrooms.
The experimental theatrical stage of the On-Off: Rumah Bolong used the vertical bamboos to surround three corners resembling half circles on the middle of Kober public cemetery. The lines drawn on the bamboos seemingly represented the tall buildings in Jakarta. For about two hours, the show featured the dramatization of scenes by scenes giving symbolic meaning about a house.
“A house losing its window and door is a threat,” Dindon said when explaining the concept idea of the show. The departure point of the On-Off was the concern about the Salmon family starred by Andi Bersama as the main cast. Salmon struggled to protect his family member from the influence of foreign threats such as modernization, hedonism, capitalism, or the so-called “sweeteners” (artificial sweeteners) which could knock down the family identity construction and Salmon’s household.
No matter how hard Salmon tried to fight back, the foreign “culture” influence and the “sweeteners” got stronger. The “sweeteners” and foreign culture, symbolized in the miniature of aircraft, dynamite, and oversized suit, constantly poisoned Salmon’s wife and himself, the grandson John and eventually the grandmother who was the last one in keeping the tradition. Their identities were poisoned. Salmon’s home and family were torn down into pieces, foundation shatterd and construction demolished.4
According to Dindon, in On-Off, home manifest both the family and nation. Once it had holes and loosened, its doors opened widely, so wild animals and dogs metaphorically described as materialism, fundamentalism, capitalism, and globalization entered the house. As a result, the house experienced an ideological crisis; some were chasing their dreams of working abroad, some became terrorists, whilst the remaining ones were the grandmother and her grandson that were keeping the home intact. The grandmother and her grandson would then preserve the culture and nation.
Earlier, Teater Kubur had performed On-Off at Setagaya Public Theater in Tokyo, Japan (2008) and at Salihara Theater, Jakarta (September 2010). On-Off: Rumah Bolong was later performed in the city of Bareilly-North India which is known as the motherland of Siwa (Land of Lord Shiva) during the International Theater Festival Bareilly-India on 26-30 January 2016.
For a long period, On-Off remained loyal to several previous actors starring Salmon’s family such as Andi Bersama, Aisyah, Zazilah, Yardim Ada, Sri Kuwati, and Edy Muhammad as the main characters. Living their lives with a fully intensified process in theater must be acknowledged. Andi kept proving that he had the capable body ability to do theater. He was quick when he crossed, climbed, and played with bamboos. From a total of 13 actors playing in On-Off, there was also the birth of youth regeneration who were young and mature in play.
From the above explanation, this paper reflects on the performances of Teater Kubur which has a strong relationship between Teater Kubur as a community that was born and directed in the middle of the Jakarta urban suburbs.
The real house of Teater Kubur is a cemetery that can be used as a place to practice and perform, watched, and involved the local community. Thus, the real identity of Teater Kubur is that it cannot be separated from the community and its nation’s condition.
The History of Teater Kubur
Teater Kubur is an “urban theater.” Its slum was first initiated as the local’s children activity living around the local cemetery in Kober passage, Jatinegara, East Jakarta. At the time, Dindon W.S., as the director was concerned, was called to save the youth who were trapped in drugs and crime. Slowly, they wanted to make art together with those children, unemployed, thugs, dropout children, informal sector employees, and others.
At first, the art performance was carried out spontaneously and cost-free, relying solely on second-hand goods and mainly staged during the National Independence Day to entertain the locals by utilizing improvisation. The warm welcome from the locals gave them confidence thus after running it for two years, they gave a deeper thought to investigate and understand: What is theater? What is art?
Dindon emphasized that the most crucial part was, “art is the media of awakening” and art cannot be separated from its milieu.
On 13 July 1983, Teater Kubur came up with a more mature play entitled Sandiwara atas Sandiwara (Play over Play), written and directed by Dindon W.S. Why is it named Teater Kubur (Grave Theater)? It is because almost all the members live around the cemetery and they are practicing there today.
According to Dindon, another specific reason for practicing in the cemetery was so that they could learn from the dead people: “If we cannot appreciate our lives, can we leave an impression when we are dead?”
Since their first play, they routinely practiced until 1985 when they decided to join the Jakarta Theater Festival, one of the oldest theater festivals in Indonesia today. Dindon, as the leader made a strict daily practice rule for six months as the main requirement. Those who were unable to stick with the schedule would be better off not participating in the festival. Later, Dindon admitted that it was an excuse so they would not join the festival, but it turned out that all the members of Teater Kubur were committed and met the requirement.
The first drama script performed by them was entitled AA. II. UU written by Arifin C. Noer staged on 19 February 1986 in Taman Ismail Marzuki, a prestigious theater space in Indonesia today. AA. II. UU is a TV drama script play adapted to stage which is the story of a plotting involving a son who dreamed to pursue History at university, but his father wanted him to choose another course that had more commercial value. Finally, the son chose to stop eating and lock himself in his room causing all of his family members to panic and leading to a speculative family meeting to the extent of dirty intrigues and interventions. This is a realist and comedy play, but full of meaning about family.5
Through this first play, they won the award for the best group performance. In the following years, Teater Kubur played Kucak-Kacik written by Arifin C. Noer (1987), and Kapai-Kapai (1988) at Arena theater, Taman Ismail Marzuki. Dindon presented various scripts written by Arifin C. Noer, from the easily interpreted realistic script AA. II. UU to more challenging ones like Kucak-Kacik and Kapai- Kapai of which the themes are concerning human isolation.
In three performances, Teater Kubur was awarded the best group respectively. Every time they performed, it was almost sure that most of the spectators were those from the village and they would rejoice in bringing back the trophy and celebrate their victory.
Winning the festival, Dindon felt dissatisfied with the scripts written by Arifin C. Noer and aimed to write his scripts and play. Teater Kubur started to question their real identity and emphasized the searching process by thematic and aesthetic exploration.
Iron Trilogy: Sirkus Anjing (Dog’s circus), Tombol 13 (The 13th Button), and Sandiwara Doll (Doll Theatrical Play)
After three consecutive winnings in Jakarta Theater Festival, Teater Kubur practiced hard for two years and gave birth to Sirkus Anjing (1989-1990) which became the starting point of finding their identity to perform aesthetically as well as to respond to the social-political condition during the New Order regime.
Teater Kubur realized that art is the life struggle over life itself. Creativity is not a made-up mirror. It takes courage to not stop at one point.6
“Therefore, in the New Order regime, other than performances in Jakarta Theater Festival, I wrote Iron Trilogy: Sirkus Anjing (Dog’s circus), Tombol 13 (The 13th Button), and Sandiwara Doll (Doll Theatrical Play). Iron Trilogy was chosen as the title because iron represented regime or the power,” as Dindon explained.
There were many unpredicted possibilities in theater-making. During the long process of practicing there came an idiom, “searching for unpredictable possibilities” one of which making a barrel an unpredictable possibility. The barrel became the main media in Sirkus Anjing and a forerunner of digging and exploring the aesthetic of Teater Kubur beyond the unpredictable possibilities.
Why is it named after Sirkus Anjing (Dog’s Circus)? The circus was a metaphor for being attractive. Circus is always played attractively. The word “dog” is being used as a swear word to the dilapidated political condition and could also be used metaphorically to describe the officials and those in power (New Order regime). So those who were skilled enough in overturning the powers were the dogs themselves.
The meaning within Sirkus Anjing then became a satire. It meant the dogs played in a circus and it also bears the meaning where they will play by all means for power. The circus was magical in which we could see something unseen and the possibility from all the impossibility resembling what the dogs do in an attractive circus play.
Sirkus Anjing also presents the social dimension issues. There were a lot of people coming to Jakarta for their dreams and at the same time, capitalism and money corruption happen sporadically.
Next, Tombol 13 (The 13th Button) was performed in 1994-1995 at Taman Ismail Marzuki and lasted from 1997-1998 in ten different cities in Indonesia. The play was performed after Dindon was back from his five-month journey to Holland. At the time, he was offered to live and work as an artist in Holland but he refused by saying that he was more concerned about his nation. He must come back amidst the burning riots and university students that were organizing rallies at that time. Dindon returned to Indonesia and received funding from the Prince Claus Fund, Holland to perform in Indonesia.
Tombol 13 which was first performed in 1994 was inspired by Dindon’s feeling of how difficult it is to resist the regime and its power. Therefore, he needs to at least perform something which might incite critical force to be formed. Before 1995, the depoliticized social-political conditions were making people scared to discuss politics and university students had no guts to organize rallies.
During that year, Teater Kubur had the opportunity to visit Banyuwangi, a city in East Java. People talked about a mysterious figure who is resembling a ninja that kidnapped and murdered his victim. During the madness of the New Order regime, people could be shot directly and kidnapped by the mysterious ninja. Dindon and Teater Kubur believed that with a total theater appreciation, nature would lead them into visualizing how the regime would be shattered. Within the script, there was a text which visualizes a “squirming worms spilled” in metaphorically describe how people’s unity can destroy the regime.7
“I poured out all my anxiety in Tombol 13.” According to Dindon, in the play Tombol 13 which was performed in 1994-1995, people were against the iron wall and were being defeated. The message which he tried to deliver was despite physically fighting back, it ended up in despair but people needed to have awareness. Tombol 13 play was like a prophecy when in 1998, there was an explosion followed by the fall of Suharto, the President of Indonesia at that time.
The last performance from the Iron Trilogy was Sandiwara Doll (Doll Theatrical Play) which was meant to be the culmination point of the New Order regime fall. The meaning delivered from this play was that their play (New Order regime) was no longer as great and powerful as it was before. They are “The Dolls.” They had no shame in deceiving and it has been an unrelentless ploy. They were all masked.
Tracing back to the Iron Trilogy performances, the works of Teater Kubur during that time were indeed contextualized with the social, political, and age acting as a form of resistance toward the New Order regime by offering the power of critique.
During the New Order regime (1966-1998), there were many theaters group in Indonesia, particularly in Jakarta which resisted through their works. At that time, the New Order regime and Suharto were everyone’s enemies. Besides Teater Kubur, there was also Teater Koma, directed by Nano Riantiarno, who often got banned by the military when they were about to perform. Also, Teater Mandiri was directed by Putu Wijaya, Bengkel Teater Rendra, and several other theatrical groups who provided critical voices against the New Order regime.
Dindon recounted that at that time, although Teater Kubur received no ban of their performances, they were fully aware of the intelligence’s presence among them pretending to see them practicing. They were cautioned not to mention “Suharto” or otherwise they would be arrested. Teater Kubur with its choice of using the body as medium and body as metaphors has been strategic in articulating critical critique to the power.
The Meaning of the Body and the Things in Teater Kubur
Today, many theater artists talk about theater as the emerging dramaturgy. However, Teater Kubur and Dindon, since the performance of Sirkus Anjing specifically, have been offering theater as the new alternative and emerging dramaturgy by dismantling everything in the theater.
Body has been one of the main methods for Teater Kubur, but what are the underlying reasons behind this? According to Dindon, the body as a tool of expressing has been used more than just a gesture in general. The body can be a metaphor and it can represent expressions beyond what can be deemed as human. In another word, it can represent the “animal” side of humans.
The body could express scenes of the masked humans but the gestures are beyond humans. For example, when Teater Kubur wanted to show the animal side of the human, Dindon as the director needed to experience the body from the perspective of an animal. By using daily gestures by capturing the realistic ways of everyday life is not enough to find the animal expression within the human body; the expressions which showed how humans can be evil as well as banal. Therefore, the body needed to be distorted, there needed to be an enlargement and expansion of how the bodies can visualize the horror.
So, the body as art could serve as an image of how the world turned to its animalistic being. The animal images were described, for example via the works of Sirkus Anjing and others to resemble the animals.
The bodily method applied by Dindon was known as the “On” and “Off ” method. “On” means the daily human gestures which take place consciously. Meanwhile, the “Off ” method is something that represents the subconscious and the unconscious.
There are particular expressions of “On,” as well as “Off.” “On” expressions are our daily body gestures, our inner self, in a more realistic way. While “Off ” expressions are the subconscious expressions appearing like when someone is angry beyond control. The actors playing in Teater Kubur were skilled to play the “On- Off ”; the conscious and subconscious expressions.
The actors of Teater Kubur also had a long tradition regarding the body. The most important thing is conditioning. When practicing, actors need to start moving their bodies and played on their own without having to be instructed at first. Body improvisation turned out to be a norm in Teater Kubur.
Actors are the creator. Actors are not the slave of the director. Creating as a tradition is being developed within Teater Kubur. This tradition allows the actors to think and search for their true selves, rather than being one that is created by the director.
The conditioning of actors in practicing and exploring their selves was indeed created by Dindon. He, as the director only mentored them with basic techniques of how to explore the body. The body in Teater Kubur is being matured to an extent, it can be formed as a speaking body or as the “body ensemble.” The body as a means of expression and idiom needs to be trained. After the body, as a tool is perfect, it is only then when Dindon and the actors moved to mature their creativity and ideas.
Navigating the Unexpected Possibility
Opening the space for conditioning as wide as possible was the initial stimulation process of creativity in theater-making. Teater Kubur introduced the term “navigating the unexpected possibility.” Dindon believed that if they worked without counting the boundaries of being tired and surpassed the normal limitation, intuitive intelligence would emerge. For example, if they normally practice for three hours and it makes the actors tired, Teater Kubur is trained to surpass that normal limit hence ensuring the tiredness to be gone. After their tiredness eased, “intuitive intelligence” would emerge and this is what they are after.
Intuitive intelligence opened doors to possibilities. For example, during the Sirkus Anjing performance, the actors had been trained to get into the barrels without having to think twice. The actors got into the barrels without having to see and performed without colliding with each other. His body jumped into the barrel and his feet directly went up. In reality, it is impossible according to Dindon, but through years of practice using the barrels, the actors’ intuitive intelligence was trained.
The actors practiced by getting into the barrels for years. For years, they had passed the limitations of being tired hence they were exposed to the subconscious energy. There was an absolute energy capacity within the human body that could only be utilized when we surpassed the normal limitations. Because of all the possibilities that could be explored in their entirety. When we disentangled ourselves from the impossibility, we could create something.
Sole intelligence only lay in the concept, but intuitive intelligence can be trained through the practice of conditioning. This is also inclusive of those that help to incite images and meanings which were the product of intuitive intelligence.
Initially, they looked at a barrel as solely a barrel. In Teater Kubur, there was always a clean-up process before practicing. The trashes were put in the barrels. As time went by, the appreciation toward the barrel created new images. Barrels could be seen as wheels, cars, radios, and houses. This intuitive intelligence emerged only when doing conditioning in practices which led to the unexpected possibility. So did with the stacked boxes for seating which was then seen like a lake. After stacking, the boxes turned into Kampung Apung (Village of Apung) which was used to visualize the Crashed Installation (2018). When taking a long practice, the actors of Teater Kubur could converse with the things, seeing barrels, chairs, and bamboos gave them rooms for city images with lines and each thing had its meaning and function.
Improvisation, conditioning, and intuitive intelligence are the products of a long conditioning process within Teater Kubur to navigate the unpredicted possibility in the theatrical world. The possibility depends on the depth of the appreciation. Spiritually, when we are struggling with something, it is like we are talking to God. It is unsure when God will give its inspiration. Thus, it seems that theater is like “a journey” to a long prayer.
Post-Reformation Performance
After the Reformasi in 1998, Teater Kubur, gave birth to some of its best works including Danga-Dongo in 1999 and held tours to ten senior high schools around Jakarta, Bandung, Tangerang, and Bogor in West Java and also visited ten schools for the visually impaired in the same cities.
Danga-Dongo was a performance designed for the blinds. The idea was being inspired because Dindon felt the unfairness; why could theater performances only be enjoyed by those who are normal? Dindon wanted the blinds to play and feel the concept of theater.
After the Iron Trilogy which was played in the New Order era, Teater Kubur performed Jas Dalam Toilet (Suit In The Toilet) in 2004. The play was performed during the post-Reformasi period. At the time, Megawati Soekarno Putri, Indonesian president, criticized many policies. People felt euphoric as democracy is at dawn.
“People were excited, democracy became a crazy thing, but people are not clear what democracy was. So, everything changed during the Reformasi period, democracy was glorified but the public was yet to know what democracy was,” Dindon explained.
During that time, the influence of the New Order was still attached. In the performance of Jas Dalam Toilet, it was described that when people were about to step out, they ended up stepping back because they were still haunted by horror. Some scenes in the play showed that actors stepped out but later withdrawn. At the end of the play, the actors ended up cemented like statues. The message was not to let the madness and depravity of the New Order regime be repeated by any means but instead to turn it as a momentum. Never let the regime takes over again, we must fight and refuse to forget.
Teater Kubur always played one play for several years. For Dindon, the main reason was that “theater is not an industry.” Theater could not become an industry sector and it needed a long process of training to ensure that the play itself was mature.
The next performances were On-Off: Rumah Bolong, Topeng Monyet Bola Plastik (Monkey Mask Plastic Ball) and X kilometer (X kilometer) in Jakarta Biennale in front of Planet Senen Arena, Central Jakarta, February 2009. X kilometer told about the life of the migrants that are suspecting to each other. The actors got out from their own houses, played at the stations; train, and bus, and finally gathered at one place. X kilometer became a multi-structural theater and its stage was the city itself.
The latest performance played by Teater Kubur was Instalasi Macet (Crashed Installation) which was a research finding and theater workshop from 2015. Kampung Apung (Village of Apung) was originally named as Kampung Teko (Village of Teko), is located in Kapuk subdistrict, Cengkareng, West Jakarta, Indonesia. For almost 30 years, Kampung Apung has continuously been permanently flooded by the pool of garbages and water hyacinth.
Research finding from Kampung Apung was played by Teater Kubur entitling Instalasi Macet in Djakarta Theater Platform on 14 September 2018 at Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta.
Dindon gives the titles of the show as Instalasi Macet (Crashed Installation). Crashing is something unchangeable. Installation was like buildings, some became ruins, some stopped, some graves submerged; the crashes within Kampung Apung was so installative which became a crashed building structure.
So, Crashed Installation is describing that the place has been flooded for almost 30 years just like a lake where the graves are no longer being seen. Kampung Apung became the buried history, worsened by the absence of an agreed solution between the people and government. The government preferred to build apartments while the people wanted to restore their village.
Houses sunk and were abandoned by their owner. Most of the people stayed because they were originally from there and keep building their houses up. As a result, two children became the victims and were also involved in the show.
The government said that Kampung Apung was a tragedy because the water surface declined, but in reality, Kampung Apung experienced the disaster because of Kapuk Indah’s elite housing construction. The people were being defeated by the environment, industries, and elite housing estates.
Last but not least, Teater Kubur as the first urban slum theater has been working for almost 35 years, keeps moving as the resistance toward injustice. Teater Kubur becomes the “witness” of each regime. Theater cannot be separated from the life of the community and the nation for it can be used as a reference to biographical creation. Teater Kubur becomes the witness to give and influence critical forces from an urban slum theater to the nation.
- This paper was originally written in Bahasa Indonesian.
- Translator’s note: Kubur means grave.
- Translator’s note: Kampung literally means villages. In some uses, the term refers to urban slum areas and neighbourhoods within towns and cities in Indonesia.
- “Evicted Home and National Identity.” Retrieved from http://www.akarpadinews.com/read/seni-hiburan/rumah-dan-jati-diri-bangsa-yang-tergusur
- Flayer of AA. II. UU played on 19 February 1986 after going through one year of training process.
- Interview with Dindon W.S., in Teater Kubur’s community, December 2018.
- Interview with Dindon, November 2018.
