Jagad translates to Universe in Javanese (derived from Sanskrit), but it encompasses much more than that. Javanese cosmetology has always blurred distinctions between the outer (Jagad Gede/cosmic) and inner (Jagad Cilik/person), physical and metaphysical, absorbing through time other concepts from Buddhism, Hinduism and now, Islam.

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Jagad began as an experimental short film in 2018 directed by Garin Nugroho and choreographed by Rianto, with myself as composer and co-producer. In 2020, it was given additional support by Arts House, Multicultural Arts Victoria and Creative Victoria to be developed as a fully-fledged stage work, where audiences would have to 'choose' to sit on alternative sides of a screen, and only see one viewpoint together with a mediated live video feed of another view. We wanted to explore how anyone's viewpoint is never complete and always filtered and mediated through other media. Rianto is an expert in the traditional transgender Lengger dance, which has seen increasing censorship by Islamic fundamentalists, together with many other forms of traditional culture.

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With the Covid pandemic, Rianto has been unable to travel to Melbourne to develop the work here with the collaborating artists including Stephanie Lake and Sean Healy. However, he has choreographed and filmed himself in Solo, Indonesia. Pending the ability to show to a live audience, we hope you enjoy this online preview of some of the movements in the work. Please press buttons 'A', 'B' and 'C' as you wish to switch between different views. Each view will hopefully give you a different experience of the same work. 

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*** Additional notes on the music (only if you're interested, otherwise just skip!)

 

Akar is the root, or beginning, and uses data sonification of cosmic ray radiation leftover from the Big Bang sourced from the Pierre Auger Observatory for the rhythmic elements. Kundalini is about sudden insight and awareness, and uses different audio stretching techniques on a short phrase sample of a Javanese mantra. Mutmainah is about acceptance of all ups and downs. I played the piano, it nearly killed me but that's ok because it's the last movement.

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Thank you to:

Arts House, Multicultural Arts Victoria, Creative Victoria, especially Veronica Pardo, Andy Miller, Emily Sexton, Olivia Anderson

Rianto, Garin Nugroho, Arahmaiani, Brian Cachia, Huiliana Chandra-Curry, Mark Buys, Ango Zhu

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