TAHANGUENTAR (2024)
Live and Expanded Cinema Performance. Developed in collaboration with Ariel Orah (Soydivision), and premiered in November 2024 at Sinema Transtopia, Berlin-Wedding. Duration: ca. 65 minutes.
TAHANGUENTAR is a choreographed sound and visual performance mixing elements of cinematographic dramaturgy with musical improvisation, dance, and archival research. Conceived by Ariel William Orah and Pedro Oliveira, the piece stems from their ongoing lecture-performance series „Jendela Sonorama“ wherein musical and personal histories speak of larger political issues connecting our home countries (Brazil and Indonesia). Our work seeks to de-essentialize concepts and assumptions about diaspora, while at the same time playing around with an idea of a fixed “national identity.“
TAHANGUENTAR (an invented, composite word fusing the Bahasa Indonesia and Portuguese words for „Endurance“) focuses on the establishment of two musical rhythms as placeholders and ambassadors for ideas of unified nationalisms: Jaipong in 1960s Indonesia and Samba in 1940s Brazil. Both rhythms served as an amalgamation of the political turmoils of their respective times and, in many ways, as an attempt to undermine or erase ethnic, cultural, and religious diversities in their countries.
By purposefully and facetiously playing around with the core concepts and ideas behind these rhythms, while at the same time exploring their obscure and oftentimes surprising connections to Germany and Europe, TAHANGUENTAR does not seek to resolve, embrace or reject these rhythms but rather to fracture through them, offering a glimpse into the many turbulences that compose diasporic identity.
Concept, Development, Musical Direction:
Ariel William Orah and Pedro Oliveira
Featuring:
Dancers (video)
Adela Maharani and Giuliana Corsi
Cinematography
Asarela Dewi
Guest Musicians (video)
Bintang Manira Manik and Marcioz
Production (Berlin Premiere):
Technical & Production Manager
Ghaliz Fikhair Haris
Photographer
Hani Hamza
Graphic Design and Artwork
Cindy Putri
Research
Hemeroteca Digital, Acervo da Fundação Biblioteca Nacional (Brazil)
Lokananta and Padepokan Jugala (Indonesia)
Developed with support by:
Musikfonds e.V (2024)
Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt des Landes Berlin (2025)
