Zillah Eisenstein may have spent decades lecturing at various educational institutions — Cornell University and Ithaca College in the US to name a few — but she refuses to define herself as an academic.

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Dear readers and audiences, with your attention and support, the planning and implementation of Komunitas Salihara programs are getting better and better. You are now holding our calendar of events for January to March 2012. This is a three month calendar and we will continue in this way from now on; as you know, last year each of our event calendars covered only two months. Program preparations by our Curatorial Board will be more long range in the future. In this way, we believe, art productions on the one hand and audience interest on the other, will be more seriously incited.

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“Jazz Buzz will present jazz bands that are very unusual,” said Melan Fitri, a media relations officer at Komunitas Salihara. “Even the instruments used are going to be different.

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Hundreds of people packed Salihara Theater in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, on Friday afternoon to enjoy an interpretation of his life and death in the form of a series of monologues. They listened to the story about Karna (played by Sitok Srengenge) from the perspectives of Radha (Sita Nursanti), the woman who found him as a baby in the river; Parashurama (Whani Darmawan), his Brahmin teacher; his mother Kunthi (Niniek L. Karim); and his wife Surtikanti (Putri Ayudya). Although he fought on behalf of the Kurawa, Karna was actually the first son of Kunthi and the brother of the five Pandawa.

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Pastoral is the title of one of GM’s poems that has joined with the musical composition of Tony Prabowo, who also worked with GM in the making of the latter’s first Indonesian language opera, Tan Malaka. 

However, the Pastoral that was shown at the Salihara Theater in South Jakarta last Thursday and Friday refers to over 10 of GM’s works — including Pastoral itself — reinterpreted by composers Betty Beath, Ananda Sukarlan, Jarrad Powell and, of course, Tony Prabowo. 

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The artists will perform a series of musical compositions based on Goenawan’s poems in a concert titled “Pastoral,” previously performed in 2006 in New York and at Taman Ismail Marzuki’s Graha Bhakti Budaya in Central Jakarta. This week, the concert will be staged at the Komunitas Salihara cultural center in South Jakarta, where the poet has co-founded.

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The Utan Kayu-Salihara International Literary Biennale is being held for the sixth time in 2011. This year we are taking the theme “Exciting Classics”, by celebrating once again the treasures of the past which have shaped our literature today, together with an invitation to develop literature in the future based on that wealth.

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In the beginning there was silence. As the audience entered the theater the sound of footsteps and the flapping costumes of seven dancers could be heard.

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Opera Tan Malaka, a collaboration between libretti Goenawan and international-acclaimed composer Tony Prabowo, tells the story of Tan Malaka, one of the country’s founding fathers, a communist whose life is still shrouded with mystery.

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Dwiki Dharmawan gave the cue to five men with string instruments. “From the top!” he said and brilliant staccato jazz rhythms ensued.

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