Career

She toured with an Indonesian dance company in USA, India, Japan and Mexico from 1978 to 1988. She choreographed and danced “Before the Burning Sitha” at the Indonesian Dance Festival (IDF) in Jakarta in 1983. Her performance video and art installation “The Last Hornbill” in Balikpapan in 1998 brought Kusumaningrum international attention. In 1999 she performed in “The Days Before: DD&D III” directed by Robert Wilson for The Lincoln Center Festival in New York, USA. In 2006 Kusumaningrum danced at Monteverdi’s Orfeo directed by Chen Shi-Zheng at Majestic Theatre, Boston, USA.

Her achievements extend into choreography, art curatorial and independent production. In 1984 she was the producer for Tirtasari Pliatan Ubud in Leningrad and in Moscow (1986, 1988) organized by Indonesian Embassy. She collaborated with Ong Keng Seng for ‘The Flying Circus Project” for TheatreWorks in Singapore in 2000.

In terms of projects, and her leadership she first cooperated with six international friends to set up the Bali Purnati Center for the Arts in 1999 known in Indonesian as the Yayasan Bali Purnati which denotes an international non- profit cultural foundation dedicated to the preservation, promotion, presentation and creation of new directions in the performing, visual and design arts. It is also a center devoted to the documentation – in words, pictures and film – of traditional and new artworks.

In 2002, Kusumaningrum began the highly successful and much acclaimed collaboration with theatre director Robert Wilson on “I La Galigo” based on “Sureq Galigo”, the humankind’s longest creation epic by the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia and adapted for the stage by scholar Rhoda Grauer. Rehearsals for the performance of the epic began at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center in Watermill, USA and continued at Bali Purnati in Ubud, Indonesia. “I La Galigo” premiered at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay in Singapore in 2004 and has been continuously performed for 8 years around the world to much acclaim. The success of “l La Galigo” resulted in the epic to be included the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011.

In 2007, Kusumaningrum founded an independent art production company Bumi Purnati Indonesia in Jakarta that aimed to produce arts in various disciplines. Purnati Indonesia seeks to act as an agent of transformation and incubator to explore new thoughts and concepts while collaborating to enhance cultural, intellectual and artistic exchanges within Indonesia’s multi-cultural society. Restu Imansari Kusumaningrum can be credited for bringing Indonesian contemporary art to worldwide attention by serving as the art director and producer of the Indonesia National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale Arte, Italy in 2013 and 2015. In collaboration with the Italian independent production company, Milan based Change Performing Arts, Kusumaningrum with her institution Bumi Purnati, facilitated by Indonesian government, she brought Indonesia National Pavilion at Venice Biennale Arte. In 2013 at 55th Venice Biennale Arte five contemporary Indonesian artists were selected to present their works in the pavilion themed “Sakti” which signified the importance of diversity. The same year she produced an enchanting gamelan odyssey with music direction Indonesian gamelan maestro-composer Rahayu Supanggah titled “Sakti: L’ Armonia del Cielo” for 2013 The Festival dei Due Mondi (the Spoleto International Theater Festival) in Spoleto, Italy. It was performed again at Pesta Raya Malay Festival of Arts at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore in 2014.

A theatre work “Under the Volcano” inspired by Syair Lampung Karam 1833 was her next production and it was performed at the 6th Theatre Olympics 2014 at Dayin Theatre Beijing, China; at TheatreWorks Singapore in 2016; and Borobudur Temple, Indonesia in 2018. In 2015, she again organized the Indonesia National Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale Arte, this time presenting Heri Dono with his “Voyage-Trokomod”, the idea of the Trojan horse and the body of a Komodo dragon, a work that symbolizes a reflection on the past, present and hopes for the future through advanced and also ancient technology, all embodied in a mythical creature.

Restu Imansari Kusumaningrum is passionate about the culture heritage and preservation, the arts and crafts of the Indonesian archipelago and as a Cultural Creative believes that through a cultural dialogue that includes the traditional as well as the contemporary, the Eastern and Western philosophies and religions - pressing issues such as environmental degradation, inequality and international peace can be more successfully addressed. As an activist with a focus on the empowerment of women and Indonesian artisans she served and serves on a number of organizations: the Nusantara Foundation, the National Craft Council, the Lontar Foundation. She was a speaker at the National Conference on Performing Arts in Yogyakarta and at the National Dialogue on the Creative Economy by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce in Jakarta in 2019. She is at present time also the Board of Trustee of the Taut Seni Foundation, the Chairwoman of the Losari Foundation (since 2004 for empowering batik women in Central Java) and the founder of the Indonesian Pustaka Network (2020) which is now officially the Indonesian Heritage Preservation Agency. All of this aims to build and develop Indonesian arts and culture, as well as networking extensively with national and international artists.

Bettina WitteVeen, Jakarta, 2022

Seminar and Teaching in school of Art