The 4th Bandung Isola Performing Arts Festival (BIPAF) 2019: Performance Art Creative Innovation and Collaborative Artwork

BANDUNG, UPI

In celebration of the 65^th UPI’s Dies Natalis, UPI organized the 4^th Bandung Isola Performing Arts Festival (BIPAF) 2019 at Villa Isola on Saturday, October 19th, 2019, starting from 07.00 to 11.00 pm.

Bandung Isola Performing Arts Festival (BIPAF) is a place for promoting curated innovative performing arts (Dance, Theatrical dance, and Drama dance) in Bandung in the form of a festival. This festival facilitates creators, art presenters, and creative work teams to exhibit their work in the hope of creating collaboration and transactions with festival directors and venue presenters at national and international levels.

BIPAF 2019 was organized by the Center for Research and Development of the Creative Economy and Tourism Industry, LPPM (Institute for Research and Community Service) of UPI, and BIPAF Community.

As carrying the theme “Identity and Community Building”, this year BIPAF held at UPI’s “Villa Isola” as a media to present UPI’s campus identity with its building heritage architecture.

The first remarks were opened by Juju Masunah, M.Hum.,Ph.D. She showed her gratitude to all the elements that made this year’s BIPAF a reality. “I hope this event can become a forum to promote innovative artwork into a monumental annual ceremony that will create new leaders who are highly dedicated and committed to supporting the creative industries, especially art exhibitions in Indonesia in the face of Industry Era 4.0.”

The next remarks were delivered by Tris Avianti from the Department of Tourism and Culture of Bandung (DISBUDPAR), “We hope BIPAF will always continue because the program has very good potential. This program is in collaboration with the Bandung city government program, one of which is performance art. This event was very helpful for the performing arts sub-sector. In the future, we hope the network will continue and become more harmonious.”

The event was symbolically opened by the remarks from UPI’s President, Prof. Dr. H. R. Asep Kadarohman, M.Si. He expressed his gratitude and respect for BIPAF in the 65th UPI’s Dies Natalis and the 13th Lustrum. He also showed appreciation to all elements who compiled this event, also credit for Juju Masunah, M.Hum.,Ph.D. “I also want to appreciate and give my appreciation for Juju Masunah, M.Hum.,Ph.D. as the 2019 Academic Leader for Arts and Culture.”

The performances that were shown last night included Angrapana Ing Kujang by Dendhi Firmansyah (Bandung), Sanghyang Awi (Bamboo Mask) by Ayo Sunaryo (Bandung), Inyiak Balang by Saian Badaruddin (Padang), Room Rock by Nanda Cahya A. (Surabaya), Scissor Tail Sergeant by Nahoon Park and Ismail (South Korea), and Storm by Kiryong Son and Y’sU (Youngsan University) Performing Group (South Korea).

The 8 performances were selected works from a total of 24 works from submission from all over Indonesia, then were selected and resulted in 6 works that passed the selection. The other two performances were from Youngsan University South Korea.

Each selected performance has its own unique ideology and meaning. Angrapana Ing Kujang is a manifestation of enthusiasm in the weapon Kujang (Sundanese traditional weapon) consisting of 3 attitudes (tilu sapamilu): Tekad (determination), ucap (speech), dan lampah (behavior).

Sanghyang Awi (Bamboo Mask) represents the philosophy of bamboo in the aspects of aesthetics, strength, flexibility, and the role of bamboo as it is considered a symbol of Sundanese civilization.

Inyiak Balang is based on Minangnese’s Legend (an ethnic from West Sumatra) si-Ampo Limo or (The Spirit of Tiger King) that believed as the guardian of the village.

Room Rock is inspired by Reog Ponorogo (a dance of culture tradition from Ponorogo, East Java) as an interpretation and aesthetics of the barong players.

Scissor Tail Sergeant discusses social conflicts that often occur in recent generations.

Storm created local experimental works performance that embraces world culture based on a Korean value. (Text and photos: Ghina Aulia Saffanah)