Paviliun Puisi #CuciMata Edition Combines Poetry, Music and Visual Art
Jakarta. Paviliun Puisi, a monthly poetry reading event, returns for its fourth edition on Sunday (01/10) at Paviliun 28 cafe in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta. Themed "Cuci Mata," an Indonesian idiom to describe either window shopping or gawking at an attractive person, the event this time showed a series of poetry-based visual explorations.
Paviliun Puisi premiered earlier this year and has been held monthly, usually in the last week of each month. It aims to be a platform where poetry and art intersect, giving the audience a new experience.
The casual event also allows anyone, regardless where or which community they come from, to read their works in an open mic session. Apart from giving spotlight for new voices, the activity is expected to be a medium for experimentation helping aspiring poets find their own styles.
For Sunday's edition, the organizers invited Dalam Jenggala X SWUN, a creative project by artists and writers combining poetry, music and visual arts. The project gave birth to a book called "Teman Sepuluh Tahun," which was independently released last year, and was re-introduced at Paviliun Puisi.
Art collective Sastra Lintas Rupa, or "literature in many faces," also took the mic — and the video projector. The group has been involved in a year-long project to make visual explorations based on Indonesian literary archives stored at the H.B. Jassin Center for Literary Documentation in Cikini, Central Jakarta. The archives include handwritten notes and letters by legendary Indonesian poets such as Chairil Anwar.
On Sunday, Sastra Lintas Rupa created a series of impressive, neatly staged multimedia shows which incorporated a contemporary dance performance by Densiel Lebang. The lyrical dancer swayed through the crowd, carrying a flashlight in a darkened room, and then owned the stage in an emotionally charged performance, a free-form interpretation of a poem about the woman body by award-winning poet Cyntha Hariadi.
The event also featured poet Michael Ray who performed with a pink plastic skull called Millie, incendiary MC and rapper Tuantigabelas, Taqarrabie, indie band Joko in Berlin and DJ Edophilia who with his poet-partner Ratri Ninditya mashed up dance remixes of songs from the original Trainspotting soundtrack with Ratri's emo-surreal poem on "suburban discontentment" — which mentioned everything from Korean beauty products, holidays to Scandinavian countries to a conceptual poetry manifesto.
During the open mic sessions, the jam-packed room at Paviliun 28 was kept dark and the stage was lit with an LED light show by Rendy Iskandar from Motion House.
The monthly event is free of charge, and readers who want to participate in the open mic session can sign up on the spot. The next Paviliun Puisi event will take place on Oct. 28, also at Paviliun 28.
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