Siska Tjhin picked up the ends of two green scarfs attached to her waist. As stage lights glinted off pieces of metal on her chest, she raised the cloths in slow, deliberate motions, her face fixed in concentration.
About 100 audience members watched Tjhin’s dance and ate Indonesian food Sunday night in the EMU Ballroom during Indonesian Night 2004.
“This is about the Indonesian culture, about the Indonesian food, the Indonesian story (and) music,” Persatuan Mahasiswa Indonesia di Amerika Serikat President Andreas Subekti said before the show. “It’s all about our traditional culture.”
Before the program began at 7 p.m., audience members ate a five-course meal that included ayam goreng, or Indonesian fried chicken.
The meal also included a spicy dish, sambal goreng kentang — fried potatoes cooked in chili sauce — and kue nangka, a gelatin jackfruit cake.
An Indonesian band from Corvallis played during the dinner.
The program, which featured a fashion show and three different traditional dances, revolved around a folk story about Cianjur, a city on the island of Java.
The story tells how Cianjur got its name, PERMIAS Vice President Arya Surowidjojo said. “Ci” means “water” and “Anjur” means “guidance,” according to the program guide.
In the story, a wealthy man obsessed with trade and commerce takes over a sleepy village and lets its farmers starve. Despite the villagers’ pleadings, he refuses to listen and spends his days counting money. He spurns a “mysterious old woman” who asks the man for food. The woman later summons a flood that drowns the wealthy man and spares the villagers.
“We never really own anything,” the narrator intoned. Indonesian folk stories often have strong moral points, Surowidjojo said.
The play also alluded to modern events. Toward the end of the play, a projection screen showed anarchic street scenes from 1998, when rioting Indonesians forced longtime dictator Suharto to resign.
The play also worked to transition between the dances and other demonstrations of traditional Indonesian culture.
Six women, performing a jaipong dance, twisted their shoulders, necks, hips and hands to music.
Tjhin’s performance of tari srimpi, a palace dance that emphasized the slow, careful movement of her hands and feet, was her first, she said. For the past month, she learned by following a videotape.
One of the more dramatic dances ushered in the flood scene of the play, when PERMIAS members sprinted from the back of the ballroom to the front.
A film of an Indonesian puppet play was also shown on the projection screen. The “Legend of Dewi Sri” told the story of how rice was created. Traditional Indonesian puppet plays used to last from dusk to dawn, but Sunday’s story was edited to several minutes.
“It was good,” sophomore Ryohei Ishii said. “I liked it a lot because they included the educational aspect to the show.”