Online Artist Talk: Melati Suryodarmo “LAPSE”

Reeling Hypereality, the 2025 Taipei Arts Festival, will launch in September. One of its featured works, LAPSE, will be performed on September 20th and 21st. The piece explores the state of contemporary social chaos through the lens of collective experience. Its creator, Indonesian visual and performance artist Melati Suryodarmo, is internationally renowned for her durational performances. LAPSE is a co-commission by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay in Singapore, Asia TOPA in Melbourne, and Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan, and marks Melati’s first choreographic work in which she steps into a behind-the-scenes role. This talk was held to offer audiences a deeper understanding of the work’s concept and creative process, and was moderated by Siraya Pai, a freelance theatre critic, translator, and writer.

Melati began by reflecting on her early training in traditional dance. Born into a family of dancers, she developed a deep interest in the idea of a social body and the movements of Butoh. She later studied under Marina Abramović, receiving years of choreographic training and learning to use her body as a conceptual tool for expressing artistic ideas. Her solo performances—some lasting five hours or even an entire week—were presented in museums and galleries around the world.

Upon returning to her hometown of Solo, Indonesia, in 2010, Melati recognized the lack of local arts infrastructure and decided to open her studio to emerging choreographers. For more than a decade, she was exploring the potential of the body, experimenting with Butoh techniques in the context of performance art with dancers. In her choreographic process, she intentionally minimized her own presence, believing that dancers were not tools but human collaborators. She expressed her ideas through the originality of the dancers’ bodies, while the dancers, in turn, developed their own interpretations and spatial awareness.

LAPSE first began development in 2019 and was originally scheduled for performances in Japan and Taiwan, but these plans were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The work eventually premiered in 2023, with performances at Esplanade Singapore and Asia TOPA Melbourne—Taiwan marks its third stop. Melati noted that each venue, whether indoor or outdoor, presented distinct spatial conditions, which required adjustments for both the dancers and the sound artist. For example, at the Esplanade in Singapore, the staging brought the performers closer to the audience. However, these changes did not alter the core choreographic intention. Melati described her collaboration with the dancers as a process of an ongoing calibration, emphasizing that each performer embodied an expression of her inner soul. As such, she invested considerable care and attention during rehearsals.

Melati enjoyed engaging with audiences beyond the art world and had maintained an open attitude toward public interpretation. At the previous two stops, she gave her best in each performance but held no fixed expectations for the audience. She believed that the audience was an integral part of the performance, and that the outcome of each performance depended on the atmosphere created by those present. Sharing the same theatrical space, the audience brought social and human energy that helped complete the work—resonating with LAPSE’s conceptual origin in observing the real world. She welcomed divergent interpretations and was both surprised and delighted by the responses from earlier audiences, which allowed her to reconsider her own work from entirely new perspectives. For the upcoming performance in Taiwan, she likewise hoped to receive more feedback

The title LAPSE carried multiple meanings—a temporary failure, mistake, and a short period of time. Discussing the concept embedded in the title, Melati explained that, in exploring social chaos, she observed various conditions in public spaces across Indonesian society, including streets and markets. She found that while chaos lacks structure, it was also charged with energy. In this sense, LAPSE embodied the potential for generating chaos.

Many chaotic situations, in fact, were not as frightening as people might have imagined. While traffic in Indonesia may appear disorderly—with few following official rules—harmony could still be found, as long as one remained attentive. Melati shared an example: when a woman without a helmet was seen riding a motorbike with a child through dense traffic, other drivers instinctively slowed down and gave way. This, she explains, was how care and protection manifested in Indonesian society. Beyond traffic, she also observed interactions in local markets, where bargaining, exchanging goods, and familiarity among vendors and customers reflected the strategies people used to communicate and survive. These practices spoke to how relationships were formed—or, in some cases, intentionally not formed.

Through these observations, Melati further noted that traditional Indonesian culture did not historically include a concept of democracy. Democracy, she explained, was a Western construct introduced by thinkers like Aristotle, and Indonesia only adopted a democratic system after World War II. In practice, however, Indonesia had long functioned under a monarchical structure. As a result, remnants of hierarchy and royal traditions continued to shape Indonesian society beneath the surface of modern democracy. In this sense, she suggested, the country was navigating an idealism that did not fully align with its cultural foundations.

Melati  noted that she had gained much from Japanese culture—its worldview and philosophy of life had served as important sources of intellectual inspiration. At the same time, she expressed concern that such knowledge was gradually being forgotten—not only due to the legacy of colonialism, but also because of the disorientation brought about by digital communication. In today’s digital world, people often mistakenly believed they knew each other deeply and that distance had been erased. Information technology and social media shifted by the second, allowing us to witness events on the other side of the world in real time through virtual reality, algorithms, and other tools. Many had come to accept this mediated experience as reality itself.

Humans often assumed themselves to be highly intelligent, but at the core, what was the true nature of human power? In LAPSE, Melati explored multiple layers of historical chaos. Beginning with observations of one’s immediate surroundings, she sought to understand how human beings related to nature, ancestors, inherited knowledge, and higher ancestral spirits. Her inquiry was deeply rooted in the traditional customs and symbolic practices of Indonesian culture.

Melati believed that the most valuable aspect of humanity lay in its long history of movement and survival within nature. The natural world followed its own cycles and sense of time, and humans should not see themselves as its masters. Instead, they must learn to reconnect with nature—including natural phenomena such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Disasters could strike at any moment, and the value of death was always in tension with the desire to survive

LAPSE is an international collaboration involving artists from Indonesia, Taiwan and Singapore. Singaporean sound artist Yuen Chee Wai is responsible for the live sound and music, crafting an acoustic environment that evokes a storm-like force of nature. Melati noted that she enjoyed working with live sound, particularly because of her interest in human “failure” and the unpredictability of liveness in performance. A longtime friend, Yuen understood her perspective on corporeality: that sound and consciousness held equal weight. For Melati, sound was not merely rhythm or background—it needed to enter into dialogue with the dancers, even if it could not perfectly synchronize with their movements. She cited traditional Indonesian dance, in which dancers and drummers engaged in a form of conversation—the rhythms of the drum resonating with the body’s movement. In this interplay, sound became not only performative but also affective, activating the audience’s senses. Since each person hears differently, every audience member experiences a unique auditory journey. Melati believed that LAPSE was not only entertaining, but also a deeply sensory experience.

The four dancers in LAPSE come from both Indonesia and Taiwan. Razan Wirjosandjojo, who plays the white-furred beast, has collaborated with Melati since 2018. Trained in hip-hop and modern dance, he also studied traditional dance in Solo. Mekratingrum Hapsari, another Indonesian performer, shares a similar background in hip-hop and traditional dance. She studied various performance techniques at Melati’s studio and appears in this work as the human woman. I Komang Tri Ray Dewantara, who portrays the Tin Man, also comes from a traditional dance background. Rooted in Balinese dance, her current focus lies in exploring how traditional forms can evolve in a contemporary context. Taiwanese dancer Yu-Fong Lai plays the human man. Melati praised his approach to movement and exploration, noting his commitment to developing a new physical language. She also noted that, through her artistic practice, she works with dancers to ground them in inner awareness and bodily expression.

While discussing the body’s transcendental relationship with the environment, they came to understand that the body was part of a larger cycle—a realization especially significant for the dancers. Each of the four dancers had distinct lifestyles, worldviews, beliefs about life and death, cosmologies, and spiritual perspectives. Their understandings of the relationship between the human body and higher existence varied greatly. Melati emphasized her respect for each dancer’s individual values and interpretations.

In LAPSE, the half-human, half-bird figure of Garuda is reimagined as a mediator between the human and spiritual worlds. According to mythology, Garuda’s mother was once enslaved, and out of deep love for her, he overcame countless obstacles to rescue her. Over time, Garuda came to symbolize a child’s devotion to their mother. Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, represents wisdom and protection, shielding people from natural disasters. While exploring these myths with the dancers, Melati observed that although such stories emerged from premodern understandings of the body, contemporary audiences—particularly post-millennial generations—often related them to the concept of embodiment or avatars. Indeed, myths that have existed in Indonesian culture since the 8th century share striking similarities with the surrogate bodies in movie Avatar. From ancient times to the present, humanity has persistently sought to understand its relationship with mountains and the natural world.

The embodiment of Garuda is not conveyed solely through costume. For instance, the characters portrayed by Hasianna and Lai Youfong represent beings that are half-human, half-divine—figures that symbolize protection. These anthropomorphic deities also possess animal traits, signifying higher forms of wisdom. In fact, they serve as personifications of wisdom, philosophy, and knowledge as interpreted by Indonesia’s ancestors. Melati believed that revisiting traditional mythology was a way of reconnecting with knowledge, language, and cultural heritage. After colonization, Indonesians were taught to see their culture as backward and inferior to that of the West, leading to a disconnection between younger generations and their cultural roots. However, Melati argued that Indonesian traditions—grounded in a profound philosophical foundation—were in fact deeply attuned to nature and human experience. Over the past decade, she had continued to explore the ancestral legacies she had inherited

When compared with Melati’s earlier durational performances, LAPSE reveals a shift in focus. Her previous pieces emphasized endurance, spirit, and mental concentration. Melati observed that most people repeated the same tasks day after day, yet often forgot to respect their own time. We endured the monotony of work, she suggested, because production was necessary to sustain the rhythm of our lives.

The dancers in LAPSE were required to remain onstage for the entire 90-minute performance, without rest. Melati considered this an immense challenge, as it demanded careful management of energy throughout the piece. She praised the dancers for their mental resilience, noting that they fully believed they were engaged in more than just a performance or spectacle. Like her earlier performance art, LAPSE conveyed the concept of time through symbolic repetition, probing how human beings endured and survived. Each dancer carried a personal internal “keyword” to guide them through the 90 minutes. For Melati, the most important thing was that the dancers sustained their own imaginative relationship with movement throughout the work.

LAPSE began with Razan, in the role of the white-furred beast, guiding the audience from outside the venue into the performance space. This act of leading offered the audience a chance to experience a transition—from the external world into an interior one. Moving gradually from the noise of the street into a state of focused attention, they entered the theater not in a rush from the MRT, hurriedly finding their seats, but through a mindful passage into the performance itself.

To Melati, Razan’s appearance in a white costume outside the venue raised essential questions: What is seen? What remains unseen? The white-furred beast might evoke the spirits of Taiwanese folk culture or deities found in temples. Melati found the notion of personified divinity particularly compelling. The beast existed in between—a liminal presence that audiences might overlook or choose not to confront. It served as a medium between the spiritual and physical realms, much like the unspoken or implied meanings in everyday conversation: things not explicitly expressed, yet undeniably present.

Speaking of experience, Melati referenced the Indonesian term rasa, which encompasses meanings such as feeling, emotion, and experience, often associated with the cultivation of deeper emotional connections. She explained that rasa went beyond mere sensation—it also involved one’s awareness of their own capacities and sensory perception. Rasa reflected the convergence of sensory, cognitive, and rational faculties, along with situational understanding, into a multifaceted and divergent mode of perception.

Although Melati emphasized the importance of rasa, she expressed no concern if audiences did not immediately understand LAPSE. She respected the diverse ways people perceived the world—this, too, is rasa. Viewers might sense something but be unable to articulate it. Not every audience member would grasp the work in the moment; understanding may only emerge over time, as they gradually immerse  themselves in the experience. For Melati, rasa was a generous concept: only by first opening the door to perception could one begin to think more deeply.

The idea that “audiences must understand the meaning of a performance after watching it” reflected a consumerist mindset—one that demands people produce a clear interpretation of art. Melati challenged this notion, asking: “Why must we always understand what we are doing? As an artist, I don’t constantly analyze my actions in daily life. So why should people be expected to fully understand art?” This expectation, she noted, placed undue pressure on performers, choreographers, musicians, and artists alike, as it was unrealistic to assume that every audience member would arrive at the same interpretation.

At such moments, the concept of rasa opened up broader possibilities, freeing people from the pressure to “fully understand” what they saw—whether in art or in life. Melati noted that she herself never fully grasped Picasso’s work, yet a century after his death, people began to interpret his paintings as politically charged. She concluded that sometimes it simply took time to connect with a piece of art—and rasa gave us permission to slow down and feel.

✪ Online Talk Replay ✪
▶ Mandarin｜https://tpacplayer.org/bUxhP
▶ English｜https://tpacplayer.org/ZJIJx