Jero Wacik: Indonesian Cultural Arts to Perpetuate

Jero Wacik, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Indonesia

I guarantee that Indonesian cultural arts will perpetuate. The reason is first, all over Indonesia, children are able to paint, dance, or play the gamelan just like their grandparents, some are even better than them. This means that the regeneration of Indonesian cultural arts lovers and artists will continue, and this is made certain by the national educational curriculum.

Second, plenty of the Indonesian cultural artworks those are di-rected and approached from religion and society ethics. The lyr-ics those accompany the Saman dance from Aceh, for example, is taken from the verses in the Holy Quran. And then for the wayang art, the essence of the story is taken from the teachings of holy books or public ethics; even the wayang golek of West Java that was Islamized at the time of Wali Songo. In Bali, many of the dance artworks are only performed in temples (Hindu religious practice site). There are some religious ceremonies in Bali those are incomplete when not followed by dances. When the cultural arts those are attached to the religion are gone, the religion might fade too. This becomes a guarantee that cultural arts will perpetuate.

Third and this is the one I hold on to the most; is that many of the religious sustainers those are in their old age of above 70 and 80, that could barely hold themselves up when walking, but if asked to conduct artistic acts such as dancing, will appear young once more. They are so enthusiastic in talking about keris or wayang. This means that there are plenty of cultural arts sustain-ers in our homeland. There are also plenty of wealthy people those have become collectors of artistic items and crafts done by the artists and craftsmen of our country, or become maesenas; and with that, cultural art masterworks gain appreciations from the people.

(This statement was given by the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ir. Jero Wacik, in front of the cabinet of global Ministers of Culture, that went on in the office of unesco, France, last 2005. The same statement was reaffirmed to Doddi ahmad Fauji of the Arti Maga-zine during an exclusive interview on Wednesday  7 |

Publish at: arti  special edition, 2010, page 7