VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Sekar Laras Art Society has its own way of commemorating Kartini Day on Sunday. Its members performed the Sintren dance for 21 hours in a show highlighting the theme of "Unlimited Space".

Chairman of the Sekar Laras Art Society Darto said the Sintren dance became a symbol of a woman's struggle like the struggle that had ever been carried out by Indonesia's heroine
Raden Ajeng Kartini.

"On Kartini Day, we tried to revive the women's fighting spirit," said Darto at Bandung City's Cikapayang Park on Ir Djuanda Street.

Darto said the art heritage that he has been preserving through the Sekar Laras Art Society has yet to get sufficient attention from the government. Indeed, the Sintren dance is part of the people's cultural heritage.

"There has been a shift in cultural values. The people's attention is diverted by popular culture though the Sintren dance had once been so loved by the people," he said.

Through the Kartini Day commemoration, he and his art community members attempted to reintroduce the Sintren dance to the people.  The arts need to be collaborated with something that can be absorbed by the community members, and every art has its own meaning, he said.

"The art will remain alive when the people keep it alive," he said. He hopes that with this event, the arts that he cultivates along with his colleagues will remain alive.

The absence of spaces for performing the art works will make them easily go extinct, he added. (ANTARA)