Archive for November 5th, 2007
SURABAYA - Langit Sanbu Sea Side Pantai Ria Kenjeran kemarin (4/11) begitu marak dan warna-warni. Layang-layang beragam bentuk tampak menari di atas area seluas lapangan bola itu.
Layang-layang tersebut diterbangkan oleh para peserta Gelar Layang-Layang 2007 yang diselenggarakan Dinas Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata (Disbudpar) Surabaya yang bekerja sama dengan Persatuan Layang-Layang Surabaya (Perlabaya).
Sebanyak 90 peserta lomba berasal dari perwakilan kecamatan se-Surabaya, perwakilan sekolah, serta para anggota klub layang-layang di Surabaya. Acara yang sudah dua kali dihelat itu dibuka Wali Kota Bambang D.H. pukul 10.00.
Para peserta yang berlaga pada ajang tersebut tak hanya memboyong satu model layang-layang. Mereka berlomba menunjukkan layang-layang paling cantik. Misalnya, Yoseph Arifin yang membawa lima layang-layang sekaligus. Satu di antaranya diberi nama Naga Lembut. Panjangnya sekitar 100 meter. “Beberapa bulan lalu, Naga Lembut menang harapan II Kompetisi Layang-Layang Internasional di Malang,” jelas perwakilan Kecamatan Tandes tersebut.
Panitia menentukan tiga kriteria. Yaitu, kreativitas, kerapian pembuatan, komposisi bentuk dan warna, serta manuver layang-layang di udara.(nar)
Source: Jawa Pos Online
November 5th, 2007
Duncan Graham, Contributor, Malang
Organizers reckon around half a million people attended this year’s five-day Malang Festival — a marvelous annual free event staged in May in the East Java city’s elegant boulevard of Jl. Ijen.
Official participants and many onlookers wore period costumes; favorites were the floppy light khaki of the 1945 revolutionaries and the pith helmets and twirly mustaches of the colonialists.
The mood was nationalistic, fun and upbeat. The crowds were enthusiastic about the huge blow-ups of old time photos that lined the street; their genuine interest proving history is not bunk.
Overwhelmingly popular were the ludruk (grassroots theater) shows; coarse, traditional, improvised knock-about music-hall style performances with men and transsexuals playing the roles of women to the clang of gamelan. The language was low Javanese and the huge crowds loved it, particularly the rude words.
Before television spread to the towns and villages ludruk artists could be found almost everywhere. According to one researcher, by 1965 there were 40 times more drama groups in Java than in the U.S.
Ludruk producer Henri Supriyanto a lecturer in culture and art at the State University of Surabaya (UNESA) said: “Ludruk is the theater of the poor. It’s a political movement”.
Other academics have described it more formally as theater that “amplifies and highlights issues of social importance drawn from everyday life”.
Founding president Soekarno was a fan and reportedly hosted 17 performances at his Bogor palace. But Soeharto’s New Order government was intolerant of criticism. At first ludruk was controlled, and then suppressed.
A crowd favorite at the Malang shows was East Java singer Kadam a longtime performer who became famous under the patronage of Soekarno where the vocalist with an extraordinary range became a court favorite.
Nicknamed “Golden Voice”, Kadam first met Soekarno at the Presidential Palace in 1960. At that time the 17-year-old was a member of a ludruk group from Surabaya that had been invited to perform in Jakarta.
“He took a real liking to me and I returned to the palace and his home in Bogor 13 times,” Kadam, 64, said at his home in Malang. “He even picked me up because I was very small, and always waited for us to change after our performances so he could chat to us.
“I was never frightened of him because he treated everyone as equal. He didn’t discriminate between high and low. He felt he was in touch with the village people - and he was.
“He was a teacher. He hadn’t come from a business background. Unlike other leaders he never forgot his roots. What he said was in his heart and people understood that.
“He was a most exceptional person. There has never been anyone like him. I feel that God has accepted his soul.”
Kadam said he earned enough money during the ludruk heyday to buy land and help him survive when the shows fell out of favor.
The Jakarta Post went backstage (meaning behind sheets of ripped plastic and rusty corrugated iron). We watched the players preparing to set the audience roaring with delight at the slapstick routines, songs and robust social comment on everything from the Lapindo mud volcano to politicians’ behavior.
The actors had to improvise, do their own makeup while catching the director’s orders, rehearse lines, calm nerves, fix their outrageous costumes and boost each other’s egos — and all for Rp 30,000 (US$3.50) a night.
Maybe it was like this in Elizabethan England when Shakespeare’s plays were performed in a similarly rugged environment by people who wanted to act — not for gain and glamour — but because the stage is their world.
Source: The Jakarta Post
November 5th, 2007
BLITAR, Indonesia (AFP) — A day after a false alarm on Indonesia’s Mount Kelut led to panic among residents on its slopes, the volcano is showing signs of an imminent eruption, a scientist said Sunday.
“An eruption is now very, very much possible, although so far it has not yet happened,” said Agus Budianto, a geologist monitoring the activities of the volcano in the densely populated East Java province.
On Saturday, continuous tremors beneath the volcano became so strong that they could no longer be read on seismological instruments, leading scientists to evacuate their posts and warn an eruption appeared to have occurred.
They could not confirm it visually as the top of the historically deadly mountain was shrouded by clouds but their warning led residents still in the danger zone to flee in fear for their lives.
Budianto said: “There was no lava or ash emitted by the volcano.” But the volcano’s behaviour on Sunday indicated an eruption was still imminent, he added.
“Besides the rising earthquakes and tremors, we are also witnessing a new phenomenon — smoke rising from the crater lake and the temperature of the water continuously rising,” he told AFP.
A 15-metre (yard) deep lake fills the volcano’s crater.
“All these developments show that the volcano has reached some sort of point of no return,” he added.
Blitar district spokesman Kamtono said the district chief has issued a written order for the district police to evacuate the few people who have so far refused to leave their homes in the danger zone.
“This step has been taken for the sake of the safety of the people themselves because the risks now appear increasingly higher that an eruption is soon to come,” Kamtono said.
About 130,000 people live within a 10-kilometre (six-mile) danger zone around the volcano, officials have said.
Meanwhile, three truckloads of policemen, some armed, were attempting to disperse onlookers watching volcanic debris wash down the mountain.
Experts expect an eruption of Kelut to consist of “heat clouds” or pyroclastic flows of searing gas and volcanic debris rushing down the slopes, similar to the last eruption in 1990 that left 34 people dead.
Since record-keeping began, Mount Kelut’s eruptions have claimed more than 15,000 lives, including an estimated 10,000 in a catastrophic 1586 eruption. A 1919 eruption spewed heat clouds that killed 5,160 people.
Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where several continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
Source: http://afp.google.com/
November 5th, 2007