[Kabar-indonesia] Teater Tanah Air triumphs in Germany [+UI students 2nd in Australs]

[Joyo at aol.com]

also: UI students place 2nd in Australs

The Jakarta Post 
Sunday, August 6, 2006

Teater Tanah Air triumphs in Germany

Tam Notosusanto, Contributor, Jakarta

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are the real Indonesian idols," declared 
Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo. Of course, real-life Idols Delon, Joy Tobing and 
Mike Mohede were not present at the Graha Bakti Budaya of the Taman Ismail 
Marzuki arts center (TIM) that July 30 evening.

And the Education Minister of the republic seemed an odd choice for an 
Indonesian Idol master of ceremony. What he was actually referring to were the 14 
children -- members of the Teater Tanah Air (TTA) theatrical troupe -- who had 
just returned from competing in the 9th World Festival of Children's Theatre in 
Germany.

Sudibyo had reason to be full of praise. The TTA kids won first place at the 
week-long competition in late July, beating over 20 other participating 
countries, including host country Germany.

They are obviously on a winning streak: Two years ago, the group also won 
first place at the same festival in Toyama, Japan.

Performing Wow, a one-hour spectacle of music, dance and movement specially 
written by playwright Putu Wijaya for the group, the TTA really wowed the 
audience in Lingen, Germany. As evident in the video of the performance, the crowd 
clapped and laughed, even cried, as the TTA performed onstage.

Wow was a mythological story about kids at play, having fun until they were 
struck by tragedy as an evil creature swallowed up the moon and killed some of 
their friends. But the kids recovered and with the help of a benign white 
giant, defeated the evil creature.

The show got a rousing round of applause, and the group walked off with 
citations for Best Performance, Best Directing and a total of 19 gold medals.

"Our show was on the very last night," said Wow director and TTA founder Jose 
Rizal Manua. "I was amazed to find the auditorium packed. It was a sold-out 
show. Many people who wanted to see it did not get tickets."

Manua didn't expect such enthusiasm from the international audience. His best 
guess was that festival-goers from other countries who were impressed with 
TTA's show two years ago anticipated what they had to offer this year. And the 
show turned out to be a(nother) hit.

"In the discussion forum the next day, our show became a hot topic," Manua 
said proudly. "Every aspect of it was analyzed by theater experts who were in 
attendance."

Renowned filmmaker Garin Nugroho, whose 12-year-old daughter Adinda was one 
of the 14 actors, wasn't surprised by the victory.

"It's not a matter of exoticism. It's not just because our show presented our 
rich culture from Betawi to Kalimantan to Sulawesi to Papua," said Garin. 
"Other countries also showed off their exotic qualities. But our show won because 
it has a good mixture of everything, from singing, dancing, pantomime and 
shadow puppetry."

The festival's runner-up was a Cuban troupe with their rendition of tales by 
Hans Christian Andersen. Zimbabwe took third, followed by Russia in fourth 
place.

The TTA didn't expect to win, and a malfunctioning tape player almost kept 
them from even finishing the show.

Nuansa Jawadwipa, 16, Manua's daughter and the eldest player in the troupe, 
was supposed to come onstage at one point as the evil witch who dances around 
the kids with a boom box held aloft.

"The tape recorder wouldn't start," Nuansa recalled. "I was like, oh my God, 
oh my God. And I ran to the committee people, asking if they had another tape 
recorder. They didn't. So I just stayed put, there was nothing else I could 
do."

Meanwhile, her fellow cast members were all sitting onstage in a reflective 
pose after a dance number. The audience wasn't aware of what was happening and 
was giving a long, warm applause. The child actors did their best to contain 
their restlessness, waiting for Nuansa, who never showed up.

"Oh no, we're gonna fail," Ahmad Fadillah, 14, remembered thinking to himself 
as he sat there.

Stage manager Alika Chandra recalled going into a panic as he ordered the 
sound operator to cue to music.

Onstage, Alika's 9-year-old son, Anggarawidhi, recognized the music from two 
scenes ahead.

"We immediately realized we were skipping a scene, (that) the dancing witch's 
scene is gone. So we all just got up and did the next scene," he said 
cheerfully like a seasoned pro.

And so the show was saved.

Experience has been the children's biggest reward. That, and some other 
things.

"New friends," said Adinda, "and a chance to live for a week with a German 
family." In lieu of hotels, the out-of-town children were all accommodated at 
the homes of several local families.

Attention from the Indonesian government was certainly not lacking. Makarim 
Wibisono and Makmur Widodo, respectively Indonesian ambassadors to Sweden and 
Germany, visited the festival to lend their support, while Minister Sudibyo 
came to TIM to watch a performance of the winning show and to congratulate the 
group personally.

"I will recommend to the President that the group be made cultural 
ambassadors of Indonesia," Sudibyo told the media.

As for future plans?

"We're competing in the 2008 children's theatre festival in Russia," said 
Manua confidently.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Jakarta Post 
Sunday, August 6, 2006

UI students place 2nd in Australs

S. Astrid K., Contributor, Jakarta

In an range of challenging debates, over 80 teams from more than 30 of the 
best universities across Australasia battled it out in what is considered to be 
the most intellectually demanding debating competition in the world, the 
Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championship, at Victoria University in 
Wellington, New Zealand, from July 2 to 10, 2006.

Widely known as Australs, the competition is the world's second largest 
debating tournament and is equal in prestige to the World University Debating 
Championships. The cultural diversity of the teams, combined with the wide range of 
topics for debate, makes the tournament the most remarkable social, cultural 
and intellectual exchange available to any student.

Over its 30-year history it has developed from a competition purely between 
Australian teams, to involving initially just New Zealand, and then all of 
Asia. It now attracts the whole Asia-Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, 
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and India.

This year Indonesia sent one team from the English Debating Society 
Universitas Indonesia (EDS-UI), consisting of Siti Astrid Kusumawardhani (from the 
school of social and political science), Melany Tedja (school of computer science) 
and Astrid Fina Nurshinta (school of social and political science).

In the freezing winter, teams had to debate in train station buildings, 
campuses, government chambers and lecture halls on various topics ranging from 
regional politics, international economic policies, sports, culture, religion and 
philosophy. The topics, called "motions", were released just before the debate 
started, giving teams only thirty minutes to prepare their speeches. During 
this year's competition, new topics were introduced, including banning 
advertising during children's television programs, disbanding the World Trade 
Organization, transferring military resources from Iraq to Afghanistan and adopting a 
common history textbook for East Asia.

The tournament consisted of seven preliminary rounds, where teams were ranked 
on number of victories, judge points and total speaker points. The top 
sixteen then advanced to knock-out rounds -- commencing with the octo-finals and 
finishing with the grand final. The physically and mentally exhausting nine-day 
event was also complete with many social events and gatherings such as American 
Independence Day party, break night and final night party, ballroom and 
championship dinner, women's debate, public speaking competition and comedy debate 
night.

In the English as Second Language (ESL) Round, the Indonesian team was named 
runner-up, the best achievement since Indonesia first participated in the 
tournament.

The ESL round is designed for countries whose mother tongue is not English, 
thus placing them at an inherent disadvantage against teams with no language 
barrier.

Indonesia defeated UT Mara Malaysia in the ESL semi-final, debating the 
motion: We should publish cartoons of religious figures. Unfortunately, the winning 
streak came to an end when the team was defeated in the ESL grand final by 
the International Islamic University Malaysia in a 4-3 split decision on the 
motion: That we should introduce hard labor for criminals in developed countries.

Indonesia's team member Siti Astrid K., was named among the top 3 ESL best 
speakers in the tournament.

The grand final took place on the last night of the event and everyone came 
to watch the anticipated debate between Monash University and Melbourne 
University. The motion for debate was: That it should be legitimate to use aid to buy 
votes in international organizations, the best two teams in the tournament 
demonstrated their skill with astute arguments combined with deadly attacks to 
destroy the case of their opponents. The excellent debate left the audience 
speculating on who would be crowned champion. In a split decision of six to 
three, Monash was declared the champion of Australs 2006, with one of their team 
members, Rolland Dillon, winning the Jock Fanselow Cup for best speaker in the 
grand final. The Martin Sorenson Cup for best speaker went to Elizabeth 
Sheargold from the opposing Melbourne team, and the public speaking winner was Jess 
Moir, also from Melbourne.

Amid the euphoria and the Monash debating anthem ringing in our ears, the 
tournament came to an end as everyone said their goodbyes and expressed the hope 
they would see each other in future competitions. This was a very rewarding 
and enjoyable tournament where students could practice what they had learned and 
compete against the best in the world. One can only hope that the next 
Australs, to be held in UT Mara Malaysia, will be as marvelous as this one. 

------------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------