Bambu Nusantara World Music Festival (Part 2): GANIATI

Bambu Nusantara World Music Festival did not only stage traditional performace art forms but also contemporary ones like this group who call themselves the GANIATI (Garing Mania Sampai Mati).



Ganiati is a community of students of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) who are into what may be called as "experimental" contemporary performance art forms. The group was established in 2001 by a number of sophomore students of the Fine Art Department of UPI.

According to their Friendster account (they don't have a website or blog), Ganiati was established with the purpose of "spreading the viruses of peace and the "garing" (literally: dry, but colloquially also means "weird" or "weirdness") and making everybody healthier with laughter and gymnastic exercises".

You may find their statement of purpose a bit incongruous. Indeed, incongruity seems to be [an essential] part of their identity as a group and their art. You only need to look at the bottom photo to see this. Here a man is dressed in girl's gown but wearing a bamboo helmet of their own creation that looks somewhat futuristic by design. If this does not satisfy your curiousity, you may also check my video of their performance at my video blog.



Ganiati is probably one of the art phenomena that can be categorized as postmodern, a condition (?) or age (?) where no subject has any rational means "to evaluate a preference in relation to judgements of truth, morality, aesthetic experience or objectivity." (Postmodernism)