PORTFOLIO of Mohammad Dendi Madya Utama a.k.a Dendi Madiya (Theatre Director, Playwright, Performer)

 Membuka Kardus Arsip 1942-1945 (Unboxing The Archives 1942-1945)

Collaboration of Artery Performa, Komunitas Ranggon Sastra, RUTE, Teater Afiks

Co-Director: Abi ML, Dendi Madiya

Teater Kecil-Taman Ismail Marzuki-Jakarta, May 8-9, 2018

 

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iruzppsMhFQ

 

Sublimating the archives of the Japanese occupation era and turn on the archives through present day bodies, as a possible means of discovering the meaning of the archives for today's Jabodetabek youth.

1.      Graphic Archive 2. Photo Archive 3. Film Archive 4. Text Archive 5. Song Archive 6. Object Archive

We sublimed the archives by the way:

1.      montage graphics & video 2. live performance 3. choreography 4. speech 5. dramatic reading 6. choir 7. music 8. juxtapose the type and timeline of the archives 9. voice over text 10. the composition of the object

through chronological dramaturgy and montage to produce the aesthetics and contemporary meaning of the archive.

(The performance is part of the program of Archive Theater 2018, organized by Jakarta Arts Council, entitled "3 ½ Years Worked: Japanese Occupation Art and Propaganda 1942-1945")

 

 

 Underscore: Copy Paste Sae

Dendi Madiya (Producer & Director) with Artery Performa

Graha Bhakti Budaya-Taman Ismail Marzuki-Jakarta, July 8, 2019

 

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH6BN6zW6RY&t=3381s

Underscore: Copy Paste Sae is a reenactment of three performance documentation videos of Teater Sae, namely Pertumbuhan di Atas Meja Makan (1991), Biografi Yanti Setelah 12 Menit (1992) and Migrasi dari Ruang Tamu (1993). This theatre-performance copypaste-edited the core of dramaturgy from those three videos, copypaste-edited what represent the “performance body” of those three works of Teater Sae.

The video footage selection was based on my observation on the dramaturgy of Teater Sae that was presented in those documentation videos. In all three, we can witness the presence of meditative, slow tempo scenes performed by solemn actors, felt as an effort to fight or stop the time. Performances of Teater Sae also present many text quotes from Indonesian political and intellectual figures and abroad. Archives and data, pieces of pop songs and national songs, quotes from plays, included in their performances, making them like “theatre of book,” as said by Afrizal Malna, the author of the three performances.

The three performances directed by Boedi S. Otong often present hysterical-explosive bodies, as well as the formation of oratoric-poetic-pressing-suggestive text pronunciation), especially as shown by their main actors, namely Margesti and Zainal Abidin Domba. The object composition presented in Teater Sae shows more daily objects arranged to represent domestic spaces (households) that cannot protect themselves from outside influences. These everyday objects are also treated symbolically in the action of involving actors, to represent the Orde Baru’s (New Order regime) sociopolitical conditions which filled with uniformity, neatness and repression.

Actors at the Underscore: Copy Paste Sae are trying to copypaste the play of actors who appeared on performance videos of Teater Sae. Imitation is endeavored on gesture, tone of text pronunciation, vocal color and tempo of the performance. The Actors psychological processing is also helped by the meanings taken from Teater Sae’s scripts. Sound elements such as music and sound effects are taken from all three videos. The sound parts attached to actor’s voice is made to replicas. The lighting is set close to what is contained in video by not setting aside the possibility of technical interpretations. Underscore: Copy Paste Sae also inserts materiality of those three videos. Especially the cut parts, blank and scratch, video parts that are less clear from the text spoken by actor. In addition, video sequence that do close-shot recording make some actor movements not accurately detected. This project wanted to check: why can the Teater Sae's bodies or dramaturgy strategies circulate in Indonesian theatre without the younger Indonesian theatre generation even watching Teater Sae?

 

  

The Diary of Voyager

Collaboration of Shan-Dong-Ye Troupe, Artery Performa, Semanggi Foundation

 

Tugu Jam Argotech, Pasar Lama, Tangerang - Klenteng Boen Tek Bio - Masjid Jami Kalipasir - Tao Pe Kong Air - Kramat Pe Chun, August 30-31, 2019

Performer & Collaborators: Boy Mihabalo, Dendi Madiya, Musa Carlos, Fidelis Krus, Ricky Unik (INDONESIA) Chang, Shih-Fen; Chang, Ting-Wei; Chang, Ting-Yong; Lin, Jin-Yan; Wong, Yun-Ting (TAIWAN)

 

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoQ3BJqu6WA

The Diary of Voyager is a site specific theater project initiated by three theater and performance art artists from Taiwan, namely Chang, Ting-Wei; Chang, Ting-Yong and Wake-Up (Liu, Wai-Kai). They were members of the Shan Dong Ye Troupe. This project based on the Cisadane River, Tangerang-Banten, Indonesia. The performance itself was taking mobile location from the Pasar Lama area, Tangerang, then to Boen Tek Bio Temple, Kalipasir area, TaoPe Kong Air to Kramat Pe Chun.

Rivers are always important sites for a city. The river shows many contemporary issues in its flow, as a mirror, as a reflection. This project seeks to look into the conflicts between civilization and nature; between construction and destruction; between 'floating' and 'moored'; also a dialogue with the collective memory of the city.

From the Cisadane River, Tangerang, there is history that is not shared and there is history that is always questioned. Below and above the river flow, time passes, reflecting fragments of events from the past, present to future. A classic song from Taiwan reminds the 'living' and 'the dead', also asking, why separate yourself through obstacles? However, there is a river flowing in our bodies that conveys that the timeline is not straight, but circular, even breaking and colliding with each other so that it needs to be bridged or simply left to scatter. As said in a contemporary Indonesian poem, we are not the center of everything. We have made a house, but in surprise we ask, where to go home? Look, there are lots of cartons of our children's milk floating towards the black Cisadane River in Tanjung Burung, some of which are stuck in the trees.

 

                         

                                                                            

 

 Pandemic, What Do You Choose?

Collaboration of Bandar Teater Jakarta (Indonesia) & Shan Dong Ye Troupe (Taiwan)

September 4, 2022

Performers: Informix Enchen, Liswati, Malhamang Zamzam, Shuhan Shu

Dramaturg: Akbar Yumni

Director: Dendi Madiya

Venue: Shan Dong Ye Troupe Studio, 4F, N0. 372, Zhongzhen Rd,. Hualien City, Hualien County 970005, Taiwan

 

Video link: https://youtu.be/5Qd6Gt40GBc

With regards to the issue of COVID 19, there were big differences between Taiwan and Indonesia. Taiwan has been quite successful in dealing with COVID 19, while Indonesia was experiencing certain dynamics. From these differences, the questions that can be raised are whether there are really areas on earth that are sterile from COVID 19? Why does the hysteria of COVID 19 tend to be minimal in villages? Is COVID 19 an epidemic for cities in the world? What is the greatest effect COVID 19 has on cities? What is the future for post-pandemic cities?

In this project, artists from Taiwan and Indonesia shared experiences of the pandemic situation recorded in the body and in the environmental ecosystem of each artist. An exchange of experiences like this makes it possible to see the changes in which direction the pandemic is moving. Or, humans are too frozen to change even under a pandemic situation.

Covid-19 has disrupted theater. The public cannot watch the theater live because of the ban on gathering to prevent the spread of the virus. Many show plans were cancelled. Liveness as a theatrical language, the main element and characteristic of theatre, as well as the roots of theater which requires the audience and spectacle in the unity of space and time were difficult to realize. While the theater is a joint ceremony.

Not only this time, the theater as a crowd of bodies was "set in order." Since a long time ago, when the pandemic hit, this has already happened. It wasn't until the 20th century that Louis Pasteur studied viruses and bacteria as the cause of disease. Viruses and bacteria were to blame for the plague, not the human body itself. However, until this Covid-19, the handling of the outbreak was still focused on controlling the human body. The method of disciplining the body is still the same. Viruses that are invisible to the naked eye make humans seem unable to fight them.

This performance tap into the theater's view of the pandemic through some plays.

The COVID-19 is still ongoing in various parts of the world, has produced dramatic archives. Maybe it is still fresh in our memory when we watch a short video of how Wuhan residents beat kitchen utensils from behind the walls of flats to cheer up one another in the precarious conditions of the pandemic. Dramatic archives that show struggles, humanist actions, contemplations, tragedies and the irony of humanity in the midst of a pandemic. These archives are in the form of videos, photos, sound recordings and writings which are circulating on social media, mass media and the internet. This performance processed these dramatic archives into human dramaturgy in the midst of a pandemic. Where are the similarities and differences between human hysteria in the face of a pandemic?

According to Antonin Artaud, theater should be like a plague. Theater must make the audience "infected."  This performance transmited the experience of the pandemic to audiences with diverse backgrounds through the possibility of mixing elements: conventional drama, performance of body movement, audio-visual Installation and outdoor performance.

 

Goyang Bulok

Co-Director: Suwarni a.k.a Adek Ceeguk & Dendi Madiya

Bantargebang Landfill Environment, Bekasi, November 28, 2023

 

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ceAghJtV0

This piece created a performance on a mountain of rubbish as a specific landscape of Bantargebang, Bekasi, West Java. Not only it is the final dump for Jakarta and Bekasi, the Bantargebang trash mountain also affects other sites in the surrounding area which was translated in this performance into a spatial choreography. "Goyang Bulok" invited the audience to get as close as possible to the mountains of rubbish to experience a confrontational situation between super productive waste creators and the giant objects they produced. Through traveling around, conversations, choreography and sound, this performance expressed the dynamics of life affected by mountains of rubbish; starting from history, myth, economics, culture, environment to climate change.