{"id":1194,"date":"2015-11-02T09:30:02","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T14:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/indonesian\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2015-11-02T03:58:39","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T08:58:39","slug":"ubud-writers-and-readers-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/indonesian\/ubud-writers-and-readers-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Ubud Writers and Readers Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve been talking about Ubud<\/a> a lot here recently, but we’ve got one more post about the cultural heart of Bali before we move on to other parts of the island and Indonesia in general – the 2015 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. The 12th annual installment of this literary festival just finished up here, and what a weekend it was! With over 200 events spread across 40 venues over just four days, there was a lot going in Ubud this weekend. Despite a little hiccup in this year’s schedule – a series of events marking the massacre of alleged communists in 1965 were canceled after threats from authorities to close down the entire festival – the 2015 version was a huge success. Although I wasn’t able to attend all four days, I did manage to make it up to Ubud to catch a few talks and a concert on Friday night and also joined in the main program all day on Saturday. Here’s a quick recap of a great weekend at UWRF ’15:<\/p>\n

Friday Night at Bar Luna<\/h2>\n
\"The<\/a>

The theme for this year’s festival.<\/p><\/div>\n

While the main program was full of discussions with authors from all over the world, there were tons of other events to keep festival attendees occupied. From cooking classes, to workshops, to bike tours, there was much more on tap in Ubud than just reading and writing. Unfortunately, the price tag of many of these extra events was beyond this blogger\/language student’s meager budget, but they would certainly be worth checking out if you come next year and have a little extra Rupiah to toss around. One extra event that we decided to join was the Friday night program at Bar Luna, which consisted of a handful of interesting sessions highlighting the theme for the weekend – 17,000 Islands of Imagination.<\/p>\n

\""Tribal<\/a>

“Tribal Tales”<\/p><\/div>\n

We arrived at the tail end of a discussion entitled “Magic of Timor-Leste” with author\u00a0Gordon Peake about his four years living in one of the newest countries on Earth. Next up was a presentation from Dimas Putra Pratama, an Indonesian chef with a passion for culture and cuisine. He shared with the audience his experience visiting remote Baduy villages in West Java to learn about the people, their customs, and, of course, their food. The Baduy tribes are split into two groups, Outer and Inner, with the Inner relying completely on nature – their houses are built of bamboo and straw, they don’t use any modern appliances, and they won’t even wear sandals or use shampoo. It was a fascinating discussion that tied in perfectly with the weekend’s theme.<\/p>\n

\""Rampokan"<\/a>

“Rampokan” and live music.<\/p><\/div>\n

Comic artist Peter van Dongen took to the stage next to discuss his famous Rampokan<\/em> series. The two comic books – released in ’98 and ’04 respectively – detail the Dutch military actions in Indonesia. With a strong resemblance to the legendary Tintin comics, the series is much more dark and complex than the child-friendly adventures of Tintin. We didn’t catch all of his talk, but we did see him again the next day in a different session.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A great set of inspiring music.<\/p><\/div>\n

To close out the festivities on Friday night was a set of world music from Rizal, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Java. Before he began his set, he introduced the audience to his unique instrument that he made himself. It’s called a “rasendriya,” and it’s a guitar\/didgeridoo made from bamboo. Joined by a friend on upright bass, the duo took the audience on a musical journey of folk, rock, blues, and everything in between. Although we would have preferred a slightly rowdier crowd, it was a fun show and we enjoyed the music so much we even bought his CD on the spot. Check out Rizal and his wild instrument in this TEDx video:<\/p>\n