TERASIA Artist Interview, vol.7 Team Indonesia, Part I: Yustiansyah Lesmana (Performing Arts Director)
In 2024, all the artists of TERASIA are planning to gather in Indonesia to hold the art festival, Sua TERASIA. We spoke to two members of Team Indonesia, Yustiansyah Lesmana and Sugiyanti Ariani, about their creative practice, their participation in TERASIA, and their visions for Sua TERASIA.
Starting Point: Research into Social Communities
For Part I of our interview with Team Indonesia, we feature Yustiansyah Lesmana (a.k.a. Tian). As a performing artist, Tian has collaborated with diverse artists, and he is also active as a video/visual artist and graphic designer. First, we asked him about what forms the base of his creative practice.
“On a day-to-day basis, I spend a lot of time on research. I research into the people living in a local area, their society, and their communities. My relationship with them are important to me. I use various media, exploring how to translate my research into art.”
Tian’s artworks are rooted in his research. What kind of topics is he focusing on now?
“I’m currently studying the spiritual customs and beliefs reflected in the lives of the people of Singkawang, a city in the province of West Kalimantan in Indonesia. The Chinese ethnic group of Singkawang has ancient rituals led by spirit-mediums called tatung. I’m researching into their faith.”
In the Sino culture of Indonesia, there is a custom for people to visit the graveyard and remember their ancestors fifteen days after Imlek (the Lunar New Year). In Singkawang, they hold a unique ritual in August. That was the ritual that Tian traveled to the city to research.
“They believe that the souls of the dead or unseen spirits can enter the body of a living person. It’s a belief that’s been passed down over generations. Every year in Singkawang, they have a festival called ‘Hantu Lapar’; hantu means ‘ghost,’ lapar means ‘hungry.’ In other words, it’s a ‘Hungry Ghost’ festival. This ritual is for spirits who don’t have family or relations, and they lay out a feast on a big, long table. There are many chairs around the table, but no one sits in them. So the chairs are for the spirits—it’s a ritual to offer a feast for the spirits.”
Singkawang isn’t the only place Tian has investigated. For many years, his creative practice has been built on research. It’s evident that his approach arises from his curiosity about other people and the world in general.
“This is something I think about often—I was born and raised in Jakarta. There’s no single, distinct ‘culture’ in Jakarta. That’s something I’ve always felt ever since I was born. So for me, I want to stay open-minded. I value gaining all kinds of knowledge to learn about the world. Because there isn’t a unified, definite idea of ‘Jakarta,’ it makes me all the more eager to discover the world. That’s why I’ve been interested in research since I was little.”
Bringing TERASIA to Indonesia
In September 2022, the members of TERASIA traveled to Indonesia from their respective countries to gather in one place for the first time. Tian was invited by Teater Kubur’s director, Dindon W.S., to help with the language side of things, and since then, he became increasingly involved in TERASIA.
“When I heard about TERASIA, I felt it wasn’t just an interesting concept, but something that might hold the ‘answer’ for me. Back then, everything was in confusion with the pandemic, and I was trying to figure out how to continue my art practice and support myself. To me, TERASIA seemed like one answer to the issues I was facing then.”
“Also, one important element of TERASIA’s activities that stood out to me was that there’s one main concept that each artist brings back to their own region and culture, and develops it in their own way. First, you gather together and come up with an idea. Then you free the idea, letting it expand in specific places that are personal to you, in the context of different cultures and regions. This process was something I’d always felt was necessary.”
Upon joining TERASIA, Tian watched the Japan team’s Tera and Thailand’s TERA เถระ (TERA Tera) as well. What were his thoughts on these works, which sprung from one idea and were developed in their respective locations?
“I watched the plays with a keen interest in the intersection between religion, place (the temples), and art. What happens when culture or art comes into contact with religion (a religious site like a temple)? How does art burrow into society? I was fascinated by such phenomena. Religion is an element of a society’s lifestyle, something embedded in the community. The TERA pieces use the temples as a way to insert art into that space. Also, from my perspective, both the Japanese and Thai versions are about one religion—Buddhism—but the ways in which they consider and approach the theme are completely different. I thought it was interesting that the differences must be rooted in the ways of life and the cultures (rather than the religious belief per se). Watching the plays made me wonder what it would be like to bring this to Indonesia—what challenges we can explore when we tie religion and art together.”
After the gathering in Indonesia, the collective held events in their respective countries under the umbrella title of TERASIA Online Week 2022 + Onsite. For the occasion, Tian and Sugiyanti Ariani (a.k.a. Sugi) started creating a theatre piece in collaboration.
“We wanted to make something for a start—something that would serve as a kind of presentation to express what TERASIA aims to achieve and what kind of things we want to create in the future.”
In January 2023, TERASIA Onsite in Jakarta was made possible by the support of Asosiasi Teater Jakarta Barat (the West Jakarta Theatre Association). Tian and Sugi put on a performance titled, Funeral Gift for Aminah Ghost.
“In Tera in Japan, you ask the audience 108 questions. One of the challenges of the performance was how to incorporate that and make it work in our piece. In order to do that, we drew on a short story by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, ‘Berita dari Kebayoran’ (‘News from Kebayoran’). We took a character named Aminah from the story and put her into the performance. Sugi played the part of Aminah’s spirit and posed questions to the audience. So in effect, Aminah, who returns as a spirit, asks 108 questions to the present-day people of Jakarta.”
They used all the questions that were in the Japanese Tera as they were, only slightly adapted to fit Jakarta, as in “Is it comfortable living in Jakarta?” After each question, the audience answered “yes” or “no” by using a lamp.
Exploring the Body as Medium or Vessel
Their idea to bring Aminah’s spirit into the play seems to reflect Tian’s interest in spirits and in the relationship between the dead and the living. Now that they completed this performance, what do they have in mind for the next Sua TERASIA?
“We haven’t come up with a solid structure or detailed concept for the next piece yet. But one thing I find interesting in my research on Singkawang is that the people consider the body as a medium. The body belongs to someone, but it also exists for the use of the spirits. The ideas of the tatung are fascinating. Spirits aren’t just limited to human ancestors either; they can be a spirit of water, or a monkey god, and countless other things. The body exists as a medium for spirits and the unseen.”
The body as a medium, or a vessel, through which one might connect with the dead or the unseen. The process of exploring this idea may illuminate diverse ways of understanding life and death in the human experience.
“They also have many rules—for instance, you’re not allowed to eat a certain kind of fish. And what’s seen as taboo can vary depending on the region. I’ll keep on researching about what the body signifies and how the body exists as a medium.”
Tian’s interests don’t stop at historical customs. He also contemplates the spiritual concepts and the treatment of the body in today’s consumer society.
“Sometimes the spiritual is turned into a business, as a way to find a life companion or fortune. For example, some adverts include an image of the body, depicting something like a spirit dwelling inside the body, designed in a pop style that catches the eye of the general public. I find it interesting to see how the idea switches over into pop culture, not just in mystic rites. Things like that are also one medium, so I’d like to research more on that in the future.”
Sua TERASIA and Beyond
Sua TERASIA is set to take place in several venues in Jakarta, Cianjur, and Bandung. Tian is also involved in the administration and coordination work mainly in Jakarta. We asked him about his thoughts on this area.
“I would like to incorporate things that are suited for each location, the special characteristics that these places have. Especially in Jakarta, plays are often performed in theatres. It’s not often the case that people think of places or environments that have an intimate relationship with the social community and put on a performance in a location that goes well with the play’s themes. For Sua TERASIA, it would be good to be more intentional about where we put on the performance, instead of sticking to the theatre; I’d like to perform the piece in various places where it will be effective. In Indonesia, there aren’t many theatres that are well-equipped, and the opportunity to perform there doesn’t come by so often. Many people give up on their plays because it’s difficult to secure a theatre venue. With that in mind, I’d like to offer new possibilities for venues besides normal theatres, where artists could present or perform their works.”
Sua TERASIA’s program includes performances and a symposium. How does Tian picture the assembly of all the countries’ teams in one place?
“As I said, I think the most valuable part about TERASIA’s activities is the process of coming up with a single theme together and each of us bringing it back to our own countries. In Sua TERASIA, though, I don’t want to just bring those various projects back together and present them in one place—that would be too simplistic. So far, the collective’s creative projects have been carried out in each country, according to the varying interpretations of each team, and that’s been interesting. It revealed different cultures, including our views on aesthetics and religion.”
“This time, I’d like us all to read into those developments and unravel them together. TERASIA is a platform that we’re working on in unison. Each of us brought back home the central concept and developed projects from there; so now, we can see what fresh interpretations and ideas will come out when we all ‘read’ those various renditions as one collective. Sua TERASIA isn’t just an occasion to present our work—it’s also a beginning.”
TERASIA, which came as one answer to Tian’s struggles during the pandemic, is now moving towards a new beginning.
“Over the past three to four years since Covid-19 broke out, we’ve been keeping up our collaboration across very long distances. Now that the pandemic has abated, our face-to-face gathering will give rise to something new. I think it’s crucial to focus on that point. I expect we will encounter and discover something we never imagined at the start. And right now, I believe that to share our discoveries with everyone is what Sua TERASIA, or the next TERASIA, is all about.”
(Interview and text by Saori Azuma, English translation by Yui Kajita. The interview took place in August 2023.)
Yustiansyah Lesmana
Yustiansyah Lesmana is a performing arts director, videographer, and visual programmer based in Jakarta. He works with Teater Ghanta, an open collaboration platform for performing arts. He is also one of the initiators of the performance studies collective Koridor Miring (Slanted Corridor). His works have been performed in various regions in Indonesia as well as in several international forums. Since 2017 he has been interested in working on models of transregional/national artistic collaboration. He has been involved in the Indonesian Dramaturgy Council and was invited to direct a collaborative project for young Asian artists at the 2017-2018 Asia Performing Arts Forum (APAF). Tian has been active with TERASIA since 2022. His art projects are diverse collaborations between artists across disciplines, regions, media, and generations. He received the award of Best Director by the Jakarta Arts Council in 2013 and 2014 at the Jakarta Theatre Festival. He currently works in the Theater Committee and Archives and Collections Commission of the Jakarta Arts Council.
Saori Azuma
Saori Azuma is an editor and writer. Her work spans a broad range of activities, such as editing documentations on art projects, conducting research for and managing various conceptual programs, producing theatre pieces, and organizing drama/art projects outside the theatre.
https://www.imatheater.com/
Yui Kajita
Yui Kajita is a translator, illustrator, and literary scholar, currently based in Germany. She completed her PhD in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Shortlisted for the 5th JLPP International Translation Competition and longlisted for the John Dryden Translation Competition, she translates prose fiction, poetry, children’s books, folktales, and texts on art. Her publications include a collection of essays and poems, titled Walter de la Mare: Critical Appraisals (co-edited, 2022) and a translation of Run with the Wind by Shion Miura (forthcoming, 2024).
https://yuikajita.com
いいなと思ったら応援しよう！
