NEWS - Jogja Java Carnival, Glorious Party in the City

Category : News ; Friday, 23 October 2009, Read: 843 time
Jogja Java Carnival, Glorious Party in the City

How many times you see carnival in your life? For me it's just one. It happened last night at Jogja Java Carnival (JJC) I was enthusiast to see the parade. It's worth enough to wait more than an hour for the carnival. "Hi, I miss my old-time hero. My Javanese superhero called Gatutkaca," I said to my self. You know, sometimes in every carnival there's a hero to attract people to come. Carnival is like a gateway to remind me again something behind. It's kind of good reunion with your time when you were young. There's no daily routine. There's no traffic jam you should pass through. There's no bill you need to pay for. Life is so fun and everyday is holiday. Isn't it right?

In JJC, at least 1,000 artists came from southern Jogjakarta and Solo. The festival was held in order to celebrate 253rd birthday of Jogjakarta City. People say that there was a big parade of royal family of Sultan I while they were moving on the new palace, it was 253 years ago. Hundreds of soldiers, servants, prince and princess moved out from Ambarketawang Palace to Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat Palace. But now, it is replaced by art carnival. The artist parade acted and dressed up look like a weird creature, looks strange but beautiful in details. Yes, the street became a wide theater stage. Dynamic movement, colorful fashion, unique wardrobe and good rhythm music were parade southern the street. The carnival started from Abu Bakar Ali Parking Area and finished at Alun-alun Utara. 22 artists were grouped; some of them used a big vehicle, some were walked and the other was used bicycle. The most interested was a big 'wayang', a puppet shadow play; It put at the big truck, near the wayang was a woman stand up, the other woman was sit, painting a white cloth with wax.

At 7 pm, the parade was moving on. It's time for you to getting lower tensions when you're watching Carnival. Give your life bigger room to take a deep breath and pleasantly be socialized. And that's alright for little bit chit chat with others. Like in the JJC, I sat closed to the little boy. He spoke to his daddy," Dad, do you know how is the giant puppet look like. Is it green, yellow or purple? Is it scary?" A man behind not surely understand what his boy meant. "Yeah, may be. Or like the last carnival. But it's not scary. It's funny." I just imagined that the carnival made them together and had little conversations. Suddenly, a group of queer dance was coming from south, they sang "Kami para waria membangun Yogyakarya tercinta (we are queer together built Jogjakarta city)". They wore kebaya, an Indonesian woman dress in modern style. Their dance was so high-spirited on high heels!

Some children and woman were dancing traditional dance. From Solo, there was a group of batik clowns, mostly woman, dancing under the street lamp, smiling at the photographer and people. Children loved it much! They scream when the clowns shake their hands. Some women try to touch the make up, feel the unique details; it must be an expert who does the make up of the clown. This is a parade, every artists surely performs their best performances. Some batik creature walked behind the dancer, it was big, strong and had a long wing, just like a butterfly! Oh, it's awesome! At the finished area, there was some pop music bands played under the colorful lighting.

It's time for the citizen to gather. That's why our JJC is very important. Even it's too hard to know each other because there's hundreds people. At least they know that they stay in one local area called Yogyakarta. That's an identity that they should keep and proud of. Even you came from Sumatera, Borneo dan Papua, there's no big deal anymore to be united in harmony. Like I told you before, it was our gateway. Let's walk through together!

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