Jakarta Globe, Tunggul Wirajuda, Apr 26, 2015
Dancers from the Wayang Kulit Gunung Wong Urip troupe made their way onto the stage amid the din of the gamelan orchestra and modern drums.
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| Mount Tambora’s eruption, the ‘Kuldesak Tambora’ exhibit features performances and works of art inspired by volcanic explosions. (The Peak Photos/Tunggul Wirajuda) |
Dancers from the Wayang Kulit Gunung Wong Urip troupe made their way onto the stage amid the din of the gamelan orchestra and modern drums.
Booming
explosions from the instruments recreated the sensations of a volcanic eruption
and amplified the sense of panic emanating from the white-and ashen gray-clad
performers. Their bewilderment was palpable as they scrambled to get away from
the implied threats of lava and volcanic rock.
Dressed and
moving in a combination of Javanese and Balinese styles, the dancers wailed and
vainly implored for their lives to be spared, before succumbing to poisonous
gas and collapsing on stage.
The scene
is part of the troupe’s fictional take on the destruction of the West Nusa
Tenggara kingdoms of Tambora, and its neighbors Sanggar and Pekat, during the
eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815.
The
performance is part of “Kuldesak Tambora” (“Tambora’s Culdesac”) an exhibition
at the Bentara Budaya cultural center in Central Jakarta, revisiting the
disaster on its 200th anniversary. An epochal moment in Indonesian history, the
volcanic eruption killed an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 people, leaving their
remains and that of their kingdoms beneath layers of lava and volcanic ash,
aptly earning them the nickname “Indonesia’s Pompeii.”
Wayang
Kulit Gunung Wong Urip’s performance then took a stoic turn.
“Its
unfortunate that the [Indonesian] government and the public continue to be
ignorant about the lessons of Tambora’s eruption. Our studies and research in
volcanology are behind that of Western countries, making them more
scientifically aware of the natural phenomenon,” lamented the wayang in his
soliloquy. “Researchers from various Western universities flock to Indonesia to
research the country’s volcanoes. On the other hand, most Indonesian
universities don’t even have a volcanology department.”
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| (JG Photo/Tunggul Wirajuda) |
“The West
was far more advanced than Indonesia [at the time of Mount Tambora’s eruption],
even as countries like Great Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal occupied
various parts of country,” Hariadi said. “The eruption was heard by British
army personnel as far away as Bengkulu, Makassar [South Sulawesi], and Padang
[West Sumatra]. This also showed the inroads these foreigners had made in
Indonesia since they looted the keraton of Yogyakarta under Sir Thomas
Stamford Raffles in 1811.
“Western
records also note that [1816] was a year ‘without summer,’ as volcanic ash from
Tambora shot up into the stratosphere and blocked out the sun across Europe and
the United States.”
While the disaster
brought about widespread famine, failed harvests and other agricultural and
economic hardships, the Tambora’s eruption was most felt in popular culture of
the time.
“British
writer Mary Shelley was inspired to write her classic book ‘Frankenstein,’
which came about from a contest to alleviate boredom due to the glum weather.
Meanwhile, German inventor Karl Drais invented the bicycle as an alternative
form of transportation after crop failures caused the widespread starvation of
horses,” Hariadi said.
“Weather
abnormalities caused by ash clouds inspired painters like J.M.W. Turner to
create landscape paintings featuring never-before seen shades and hues of
striking orange.
“On the other hand, Indonesian sources are
nearly silent about the disaster, except for a short story in writer Ganes
T.H.’s adventure series ‘Si Buta Dari Goa Hantu’ [‘The Blind Man From the
Haunted Cave’] entitled ‘The Werewolf From Mount Tambora.’
“Equally
mystifying, particularly to Western researchers, is the habit of a volcano
stricken area’s inhabitants to come back to the land instead of evacuating it,
as is the custom overseas. While this might seem like madness to the Western
world, it reflects the Indonesian people’s resilience and in the face of
disaster.”
Nonetheless,
the toll of volcanic eruptions that occurred after Tambora, like the 1883
eruption of Mount Krakatau to the more recent eruptions of Mount Merapi in 2006
and 2010, play a prominent part in the exhibition. In one corner, a macabre
memento of a volcano’s power is seen in the remains of a water buffalo that was
stripped to its skeleton by the blast.
But the
most ominous souvenir of all is perhaps a small portrait of the late Mbah Maridjan,
a shaman who paid for his attempts to appease Mount Merapi with his life.
“Kuldesak
Tambora” serves as a frightening reminder of both the calamitous impact of
volcanoes and the awesome, destructive powers that brew in our own backyard.
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