Ki Purbo Asmoro with Wakil Bupati Pacitan before the recording of Makutharama, 27 October 2007
(photo by Kartika Nugroho)

Project Artistic Director: Purbo Asmoro
Project Coordinator: Kitsie Emerson
Project Supervisor: John McGlynn

Sponsors: 
The World Bank, Jakarta
Klub Bimasena, Jakarta
The Hotel Dharmawangsa
Lontar Publications

Two lakon -Makutharama and Sesaji Raja Suya-have each been recorded in traditional, garapan, and padhat style and all recordings will now be supplied with English and Indonesian subtitles  (and at a later publication date French and Japanese as well).

There will be accompanying liner notes with information and background on the stylistic differences. This will result in four 8-DVD sets (the garapan and classical versions of the two lakon) and two 1-DVD sets (the padhat versions of the two lakon).

Both garapan lakon in the project were recorded in Pacitan, East Java in October/November 2007. Ki Purbo Asmoro designed the dramatic structure and iringan of these two performances to reflect his most extreme representation of garapan style, so as to make the greatest possible contrast with the traditional performances.

The two traditional performances are distinguished, one being "Solo/palace/Kraton" style traditional and the other being "village/Klaten" traditional. The village traditional performance was recorded in the pendhopo of ISI in March 2008, and the palace traditional performance at the home of Prof. Dr. Rahayu Supanggah in October 2008.

The padhat recordings were made on consecutive evenings in May 2008 at The Hotel Dharmawangsa, attended by many expatriates.


Now that the recordings have been completed (in one year, from Oct 07-Oct 08), the process of subtitling will begin and the estimated publication date for the first packet is December 2009.

Photos from Recording #1
halaman Kabupaten Pacitan
Makutharama
(photos by Kartika Nugroho)

Photos from Recording #2
Alun-Alun Pacitan
Sesaji Raja Suya
(photos by Hananta)

The DHARMAWANGSA

On May 31 and June 1, Ki Purbo Asmoro and his gamelan troupe Mayangkara, traveled to Jakarta to complete the two padhat recordings in the documentation project. Saturday night featured Sesaji Raja Suya and Sunday night Makutharama. Both performances were translated simultaneously by Kitsie Emerson of Jakarta International School. The audience was truly international in flavor. Ki Purbo conducted a lengthy and spirited question and answer session after each performance, in which many Indonesians and foreigners  in attendance posed thought-provoking questions.

Indonesian review of the performances by Ki Bambang Asmoro
English translation of Ki Bambang Asmoro's review
all photos by Hananta