Waktu Batu # 3 - Deus Ex Machina and My Feelings for You

The Waktu Batu cycle, which began in 2001, is based on Indonesian myths and legends. Garasi dramatizes and forms the material to create a collage of complex tales about Indonesia’s search for identity involving texts and movement, art and everyday language, fairytale-like and ironic tableaux, trance and pop music, light and projections. This piece, performed by thirteen actors and musicians, creates a work of contemporary theatre, conscious of form: the magnificent panorama of a nation entering the 21st century.

Waktu Batu #3, premièred in September 2004, is part of a series of multifaceted narrations on a complex country’s search for identity: a country with 300 languages, an equal number of ethnic groups and 13,000 islands. It is a country in which western-style theatre is rejected as representing part of a colonial heritage. Garasi see themselves as mediators between the dichotomies of original and present, and between artistic production and social reality, Asian and European dramatic art. The Waktu Batu Cycle, which was begun in 2001, is based on three different myths (Watugunung, Murwa Kala and Sudamala) about the founding of Indonesia, as well as on years of preparation and research, and extensive investigation into Java’s historical-religious sites.

Director: Yudi Ahmad Tajudin

Authors: Andri Nurlatif, Gunawan Maryanto, Mohamad Ugoran Prasad

Stage: Ignatius Sugiarto Prabowo, Warsito

Costumes: Retno Ratih Damayanti

Music/soundscapes by: Septian Dwirima, Teguh Hari Prasetyo, Yosef Herman Susilo

with: Erythrina Baskorowati, Theodorus Christanto, Ari Dwianto, Jamaluddin Latif, Citra Pratiwi, Sri Qadariatin, Hindra Setya Rini, Naomi Srikandi, Bahrul Ulum

Duration: 90 minutes

European première: 2004