Parade
Long-term project in progress: a performance in public space in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Parade Pedagang Keliling, in short Parade, is a parade of street vendors (pedagang) that go around (keliling) and is planned to take place mid 2025.

Early 2020 - just before the pandemic - I researched the possibilities for this new work in Yogyakarta during an artist-in-residence at Kedai Kebun. I collected sounds of 23 ambulant vendors. In Indonesia this type of sellers use sounds to get attention from potential customers, like the sound of a fork on a bowl, spoon on a cup, wooden stick on bamboo etc. All sounds refer to a specific food, snack or drinks: it's like a code.

In the course of 2021 and 2022 I wrote a music composition with the collected sounds, thanks to a Development Grant of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, and thanks to the knowledge and assistance of composer Sinta Wullur as well as music and gamelan teacher Michiel Niemantsverdriet. In the process I learned about composition theories and methods, methods that I could apply to my project. The composition Parade is partly based on the structure of gamelan.

In December 2022 and January 2023 I returned to Yogyakarta with my composition to work on Parade with the ambulant street vendors again. It had been three years since my last visit there. My aim was to find the same vendors, rehearse the composition I had written during three sessions and prepare the future performance. I worked from our home there and at Krack! Studio and Gallery. In this period I was assisted by local art producer Iteq Fitri Kristiyoarti and conductor Mas Krimbi, music student at the ISI.

We succeeded in our process: we found a lot of the same vendors, and some new, and we rehearsed the composition with them, in three sessions. I also continued preparing the parade by researching the need for permits with producer Iteq, and by meeting possible members of the film and sound crew. Also this part of the project was made possible by the Development Grant of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

Now finally in mid 2025 - hopefully dry season - the aim is to realise the actual parade in a few streets in the south of Yogyakarta: the vendors play their part while walking with their cart (gerobak) containing their commodities. After the performance there is free food and drinks presented by the vendors. Parade will be filmed for a new multi channel video installation which I will start editing back in the Netherlands in the autumn of 2025.