If you’ve been hanging out in front of the Griya Santrian Resort on Sanur Beach lately, you may have noticed some unusual activity going on. Something you can’t quite put your finger on.
It’s performance art.
It involves painted dancers, live art, and a large geometric shape hanging from a crane. There have been five performances so far, and not one has been the same.
Moment #2
Moment #2
The activity is part of SPRITES Art & Creative Biennale 2015.
A group of performance artists from Singaraja, led by an award-winning thespian and clad in sarongs and plastic bottles chanted and carried leaking buckets of water.
About 20 meters from the soaking talent stood Yoka Sara, a Balinese artist and architect who created and led the inaugural SPRITES in 2013 and is directing this year’s edition as well. Pak Yoka, as he’s known to everyone on the SPRITES team—a contingent of around 20 volunteers who run the event behind-the-scenes, from videography and photography, to merchandise and fundraising—watched silently from behind the soundboard that controlled the evening’s soundtrack, a psychedelic guitar played by Made Bayak who stood on a one-man stage.
In front of Yoka Sara and the rest of the audience, the group from Singaraja wailed and chanted and thrashed, some carried seawater in holed buckets up bamboo ladders to platforms of the same. Those on the platforms poured the water into large tanks and then either climbed back down to do it again or danced and drummed on the hollow plastic.
Moment #2
Moment #1
The bamboo platforms on Griya Santrian’s beach had been built the previous day and had already hosted a sunrise performance. At around 5:45 in the morning, Kusuma began the day with a shout and his cohort of young thespians had followed him into the sea. A crowd had gathered then as well, probably expecting Sanur’s famous sunrise more than a piece of avant garde art. They got both. The bamboo platforms and accompanying tanks are still there, a part of the growing scenography of SPRITES that will continue through the closing event, Moment #9 on September 6.
The idea of each moment building upon those before it is a concept integral to SPRITES according to Yoka Sara, who in each moment gives the artistic reins to a different scenographer. The eight guest scenographers (Yoka Sara will direct the climactic Moment #9) come from a variety of backgrounds, including filmmaking, music, architecture, sculpture, and photography and are guided soley by this year’s theme: water (hence the beachfront setting).
Moment #2
“SPRITES is about returning to the traditional reasons for Balinese art,” said Yoka Sara speaking from Rumah Sanur, a new “creative hub” located on Jl. Danau Poso that acts as SPRITES’s base of activity. “In the West, art is all about the product, everything has to be perfect. But in Bali, the process is most important. Art is a spiritual and religious devotion.”
Each edition of SPRITES takes its theme from a part of those traditions, the five elements of Balinese cosmology. The original SPRITES in 2013 surrounded Earth, this year’s theme is Water, and 2017’s will be Wind. Fire and finally Air/Ether are planned for 2019 and 2021 respectively. On another level, the “moments” are guided by the lunar calendar that guides Bali’s dozens of rituals.
Since the performance art of Moment #2, Moments #3 and #4 have been equally impressive, both visually and aurally. In Moment #3, under a full moon, the award-winning architectural firm Aranda\Lasch—whose work has been feature in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Art & Design as well as at the Venice Biennale—presented a massive “ICOSAHEDRON” crafted from aluminum bars and suspended from a crane that had been brought in for the purpose. Below, painted dancers moved to music from electric and acoustic guitars, drums, and an upright bass.
Much like Moment #2, Moment #4 also featured both sunrise and sunset episodes as well as music and ethnic dancers. In the evening, a single performer sat cross-legged behind a screen, his silhouetted arms dancing until he ripped through the screen at the scene’s conclusion. Below him, an artist “live-painted” on a three-meter tall canvass while a crowd of art enthusiasts and passers-by watched on.
In addition to its main scenes, SPRITES plays host to a series of smaller temporary art installations including a sculpture of ice-blocks that were left to melt throughout the day as well as some elaborate sand art. For those who can’t make it to Griya Santrian, an incredibly talented documentary team of photographers and videographers record SPRITES for both social media and posterity.
Moment #3
Moment #3
More information about SPRITES can be found at spritesbali.com and their Instagram feed @spritesbali. Moment #5 was in line with the rise of the full moon on July 30 and Moment #6 is slated for the evening of the new moon on August 14. Entrance is free at Griya Santrian Resort.
All photos: Syafiudin Vifick
