UNS — The Chief of Urban-Rural Design Laboratory Conservation (URDC Labo) Faculty of Engineering (FT) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, Dr. Eng. Kusumaningdyah shared tips to develop Surakarta branding as the city of creative performing arts. She shared the tips in Obrolan Heritage #51 (Heritage Discussion) on “Surakarta as the City of Creative Performing Arts” on Saturday (10/4/2021) held by Architecture Program Universitas Trisakti.
, Dr. Eng. Kusumaningdyah stated to the participants who joined through Zoom Cloud Meeting and the official YouTube channel of Architecture Documentation that Surakarta has not succeeded in becoming the best three in Indonesia’s creative city. “Bekraf as the motor has many programs regarding creative city which started from 2016 to 2020. Fifty-six cities are registered in the independent assessment of creative districts/cities in Indonesia,” Dr. Eng. Kusumaningdyah said.
She explained that in the effort to achieve a creative city, Surakarta needs to build synergy among various stakeholders and related agencies/institutions. She mentioned this finding because after participating in the Bekraf Creative City assessment team, she noticed that each city has a different agency or institution that manages the creative city efforts. “In the last five years alone, many local governments have not fully comprehended the heritage management of the creative city,” she added.
She also stated that Surakarta has an immense potential to be developed as a creative performance art city. As the heart of Javanese culture, Surakarta has firmly rooted rites and community tradition. Javanese people’s way of life from they were born to die will always be represented in their cultural products and performing arts as its celebration. These performing arts can be seen in circumcision ceremony, birth, wedding, thanksgiving, and death represented in dance, karawitan, music, and theater arts.
Dr. Eng. Kusumaningdyah also shared the economic impacts of the performing arts sector in the city. Dancing performance in Surakarta contributed to around IDR 9 billion annually, and the wayang kulit puppet show contributed to IDR 1 billion annually. She added that arts would link to other sub-sectors in Bekraf, such as stage outfits from the batik industry. “And batik contributed to IDR 221 billion to local government income annually,” she said.
Surakarta’s potential can be improved with the presence of academicians, art schools, and studios. However, the local government should also show a good government’s will to achieve the objective. A good government will is the focus of leadership on the performing arts issue. “I do not see that performing arts became the priority of development in the previous local government,” she said.
Dr. Eng. Kusumaningdyah reminded all communities in the performing arts field with active roles to be encouraged and facilitated. The local government should take the position of a conductor to lead and develop synergy among all communities in the performing arts sector. Humas UNS
Reporter: Yefta Christopherus AS
Editor: Dwi Hastuti
