I La Galigo

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I La Galigo is music-theater work by Robert Wilson that has been shown since 2004 in Asia, Europe, Australia and the United States. It is based on an adaption by Rhoda Grauer of the epic creation myth Sureq Galigo of the Bugis from South Sulawesi, written between the 13th and 15th century in the Indonesian language Buginese. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Plot summary

A 19th-century manuscript of La Galigo Galigo.jpg
A 19th-century manuscript of La Galigo
Writer Rhoda Grauer, who adapted the text into English Rhoda Grauer 2004.JPG
Writer Rhoda Grauer, who adapted the text into English

Out of the vast material in Sureq Galigo, that covers the story of a so-called Middle World (that of humanity), the drama focuses on one particular narrative thread, about the warrior Sawerigading, and his twin sister, We Tenriabeng. [2] They are descendants of the gods of the heavens and the gods of the underworld who send their offspring to inhabit the earth. [1] From the time in the womb of their mother, which is put onto stage, they are destined to fall in love with each other. [2] Worried that their incest would doom the world, the Bissu priests order them to be separated at birth. Sawerigading travels abroad but is eventually told about the world's most beautiful woman. He returns home and actually falls in love with his twin sister. To avoid the worst, We Tenriabeng introduces him to a woman of equal beauty, whom he marries to have a son named I La Galigo. [1] Nevertheless, the earth is cleansed of all life another time and their children mate again to repopulate it and start a new era. [2]

Production

Composer Rahayu Supanggah Supanggah 2004.JPG
Composer Rahayu Supanggah

While parts of the story are narrated, the actors are not speaking but expressing themselves through dance and gestures. The three-hour-long performance is accompanied extensively by light effects characteristic for Wilson's work and music by an onstage ensemble. [3] Their music sounds traditional, but has actually been composed for the production by the Javanese composer Rahayu Supanggah after intensive research in South Sulawesi. [2] [4] For better dramatic expression, other Javanese and Balinese instruments were added to the initially five traditional Sulawesi instruments and new ones were made as well, amounting eventually to 70 instruments played by 12 musicians. [4]

Rehearsals for I La Galigo began in workshops at The Watermill Center on Long Island, New York. [5]

Cast

Bissu Puang Matoa Saidi Puang Matoa 2004.JPG
Bissu Puang Matoa Saidi

The production cast consists of 53 musicians and dancers, exclusively from Indonesia and mostly from Sulawesi, as well as one of the few remaining bissu , Puang Matoa Saidi from the Bugis community, who narrates parts of the story. [1] [2]

International performances

Performance History
DateCityVenueReviews
12–13 March 2004 Singapore Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay [1] [6]
12–15 May 2004 Amsterdam Het Muziektheater [7]
20–23 May 2004 Barcelona Teatro Lliure
30 May - 2 June 2004 Madrid Teatro Español
8–10 June 2004 Lyon Les Nuits de Fourvière
18–20 June 2004 Ravenna Teatro Alighieri
13–16 July 2005 New York City New York State Theater [2] [3] [8]
10–12 December 2005 Jakarta Teater Tanah Airku [6]
19–23 October 2006 Melbourne State Theatre [9]
12–17 February 2008 Milan Teatro degli Arcimboldi [10]
7–10 August 2008 Taipei Taipei Culture Center
23–24 April 2011 Makassar Fort Rotterdam
3–7 July 2019 Jakarta Ciputra Artpreneur

Finally for the first time I La Galigo performance in their home town, in Makassar the capital city of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. I La Galigo back to home after 6 years performance around the world.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buginese language</span> Language spoken in Indonesia

Buginese or Bugis is a language spoken by about 4 million people mainly in the southern part of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Sulawesi</span> Province of Indonesia

South Sulawesi is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital and largest city is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi to the north, the Gulf of Bone and Southeast Sulawesi to the east, Makassar Strait to the west, and Flores Sea to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bugis</span> Ethnic group in Indonesia

The Bugis people, also known as Buginese, are an Austronesian ethnic group—the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, in the south-western province of Sulawesi, third-largest island of Indonesia. The Bugis in 1605 converted to Islam from Animism. Although the majority of Bugis are Muslim, a small minority adhere to Christianity as well as a pre-Islamic indigenous belief called Tolotang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Indonesia</span> Overview of the culture of Indonesia

The culture of Indonesia has been shaped by long interaction between original indigenous customs and multiple foreign influences. Indonesia is centrally-located along ancient trading routes between the Far East, South Asia and the Middle East, resulting in many cultural practices being strongly influenced by a multitude of religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam, all strong in the major trading cities. The result is a complex cultural mixture, often different from the original indigenous cultures.

<i>Kendang</i> Indonesian traditional drum musical instruments

A kendang or gendang is a two-headed drum used by people from the Indonesian Archipelago. The kendang is one of the primary instruments used in the gamelan ensembles of Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese music. It is also used in various Kulintang ensembles in Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. It is constructed in a variety of ways by different ethnic groups. It is related to the Indian double-headed mridangam drum.

The Lontara script, also known as the Bugis script, Bugis-Makassar script, or Urupu Sulapa’ Eppa’ "four-cornered letters", is one of Indonesia's traditional scripts developed in the South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi region. The script is primarily used to write the Buginese language, followed by Makassarese and Mandar. Closely related variants of Lontara are also used to write several languages outside of Sulawesi such as Bima, Ende, and Sumbawa. The script was actively used by several South Sulawesi societies for day-to-day and literary texts from at least mid-15th Century CE until the mid-20th Century CE, before its function was gradually supplanted by the Latin alphabet. Today the script is taught in South Sulawesi Province as part of the local curriculum, but with very limited usage in everyday life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of Luwu</span> Kingdom

The Kingdom of Luwu was a polity located in the northern part of the modern-day South Sulawesi province of Indonesia, on the island of Sulawesi. It is considered one of the earliest known Bugis kingdoms in Sulawesi, founded between the 10th and 14th century. However, recent archaeological research has challenged this idea.

Coppong Daeng Rannu is a master of Makassar ethnic-group dances. She is best known as Rice Goddess in performance I La Galigo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gender in Bugis society</span>

The Bugis people are the most numerous of the three major ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, with about 3 million people. Most Bugis are Muslim, but many pre-Islamic rites continue to be honoured in their culture, including the view that gender exists on a spectrum. Most Bugis converted from Animism to Islam in the early 17th century; small numbers of Bugis have converted to Christianity, but the influence of Islam is still very prominent in their society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinisi</span> Type of rigging of Indonesian sailing vessels

Literally, the word pinisi refers to a type of rigging of Indonesian sailing vessels. A pinisi carries seven to eight sails on two masts, arranged like a gaff-ketch with what is called 'standing gaffs' — i.e., unlike most Western ships using such a rig, the two main sails are not opened by raising the spars they are attached to, but the sails are 'pulled out' like curtains along the gaffs which are fixed at around the centre of the masts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Galigo</span> Creation myth of the Bugis from South Sulawesi

Sureq Galigo or La Galigo is a creation myth of the Bugis from South Sulawesi in modern-day Indonesia, written down in manuscript form between the 18th and 20th century in the Indonesian language Bugis, based on an earlier oral tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rahayu Supanggah</span> Indonesian composer (1949–2020)

Rahayu Supanggah was an Indonesian composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Rotterdam</span> Dutch fort built in Makassar on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia

Fort Rotterdam is a 17th-century fort in Makassar on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is a Dutch fort built on top of an existing fort of the Gowa Kingdom. The first fort on the site was constructed by the a local sultan in around 1634, to counter Dutch encroachments. The site was ceded to the Dutch under the Treaty of Bongaya, and they completely rebuilt it between 1673 and 1679. It had six bastions and was surrounded by a seven meter high rampart and a two meter deep moat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Makassar people</span> Ethnic group in Indonesia

The Makassar or Makassarese people are an ethnic group that inhabits the southern part of the South Peninsula, Sulawesi in Indonesia. They live around Makassar, the capital city of the province of South Sulawesi, as well as the Konjo highlands, the coastal areas, and the Selayar and Spermonde islands. They speak Makassarese, which is closely related to Buginese, and also a Malay creole called Makassar Malay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sultanate of Gowa</span> Former sultanate in Southern Sulawesi

The Sultanate of Gowa was one of the great kingdoms in the history of Indonesia and the most successful kingdom in the South Sulawesi region. People of this kingdom come from the Makassar tribe who lived in the south end and the west coast of southern Sulawesi.

The Makassar kingdom of Gowa emerged around 1300 CE as one of many agrarian chiefdoms in the Indonesian peninsula of South Sulawesi. From the sixteenth century onward, Gowa and its coastal ally Talloq became the first powers to dominate most of the peninsula, following wide-ranging administrative and military reforms, including the creation of the first bureaucracy in South Sulawesi. The early history of the kingdom has been analyzed as an example of state formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arung Palakka</span> Bugis warrior-prince who fought with the VOC and became King of Bone

Sultan Saaduddin Arung Palakka, or La Tenritatta to Unru' was a 17th-century Bugis prince and warrior. He supported the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the Makassar War (1666–1669) against the Gowa Sultanate in his native South Sulawesi. After the defeat of Gowa, he became the King of Bone and South Sulawesi's most powerful man.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melati Suryodarmo</span> Indonesian performance artist

Melati Suryodarmo is an Indonesian durational performance artist. Her physically demanding performances make use of repetitive motions and often last for many hours, sometimes reaching "a level of factual absurdity". Suryodarmo has performed and exhibited throughout Europe and Asia as well as in North America. Born in Surakarta, she attended Padjadjaran University, graduating with a degree in international relations before moving to Germany. She lived there for 20 years, studying performance art at the Braunschweig University of Art with Butoh choreographer Anzu Furukawa and performance artist Marina Abramović.

The Makasar script, also known as Ukiri' Jangang-jangang or Old Makasar script, is a historical Indonesian writing system that was used in South Sulawesi to write the Makassarese language between the 17th and 19th centuries until it was supplanted by the Lontara Bugis script.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Wayne Arnold (2004-04-07). "Robert Wilson Illuminates Indonesian Creation Myth". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Edward Rothstein (2005-07-15). "A Sacred Epic and Its Gods, All Struggling to Survive". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-19.
  3. 1 2 3 Helen Shaw (2005-07-15). "Micromanaging Indonesia". The New York Sun. Retrieved 2008-08-19.
  4. 1 2 Carla Bianpoen (2004-04-04). "Supanggah sets the tone in 'I La Galigo'". The Jakarta Post. Retrieved 2008-09-26.[ dead link ]
  5. "Robert Wilson Illuminates Indonesian Creation Myth". The New York Times. 7 April 2004.
  6. 1 2 Jennifer Lindsay (2007). "Intercultural Expectations: I La Galigo in Singapore". The Drama Review. 51 (2): 60–75. doi:10.1162/dram.2007.51.2.60. S2CID   57562359.
  7. Matthew Isaac Cohen (2005). "I La Galigo (review)". Asian Theatre Journal. 22 (1): 138–149. doi:10.1353/atj.2005.0002. S2CID   162218622.
  8. Cordula Quint (2006). "I La Galigo (review)". Theatre Journal. 58 (2): 335–337. doi:10.1353/tj.2006.0129. S2CID   191961745.
  9. Macknight, Campbell (2006). "I La Galigo: State Theatre, Melbourne International Arts Festival 19–23 October 2006". RIMA: Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs. 40 (2): 141–148.
  10. Giuseppe Distefano (2008-02-15). ""I La galigo" di Bob Wilson". Il Sole 24 ORE. Retrieved 2008-08-19.