During the Covid 19 pandemic and choosing to self isolate, I decided that this was the perfect time to tackle some projects, confident that once this was all over, it would be difficult to come back to work on them at a later date. In the past, my schedule limited me from working on long-term projects. I was traveling to and staying in NYC to work three days a week. This allotted the remaining four days to pursue my personal interests. Basically, most projects that I would take on usually had a time line of three days, tops. If the project was not completed within that time frame, then everything would usually go into some box, labeled and left, more disorganized than before, until I could “get to it” at another time.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me about a picture taken over 35 years ago of a group of us traveling abroad. I had no idea where those images were stored. I did know that it would be film print because digital cameras were not in my reality at that time. I knew that wherever they were, all would be in one place. How did I know this? Well…..
About four years ago, I was shopping at Michael’s Craft store. I came across some really interesting storage boxes. These shoe-box sized cardboard containers were decorated with cute sayings and sketches of iconic places. They were on sale for a dollar each. I purchased about a dozen thinking this is exactly what I need to organize and store my photos. The plan was to scan the film copies into digital copies. Yes, that was one of my short termed projects. I managed to collect all of my physical photos and put them into these boxes. I also did the same thing with all the digital images that were stored on my laptop, although they did not go into a box.
After spending four days organizing the photos, it was liberating to finally locate all of my old PR, traveling, family and friends photographs dating back some 58 years. It was about the third day when I lucked upon some videos of when I was teaching at IMDI (formally Institut Musik Daya Indonesia, now Daya Indonesia Performing Arts Academy) back in 2011. It was one of the dance classes with a gamalen orchestra.
The dance instructor, Rosmala Sari Dewi, MSn. Dean of Dance – Daya Indonesia Performing Arts Academy. The music played by school gamalen student group.
I couldn’t remember the name of the traditional dance so I called my friend Devi and thought, why not have her give a short explanation of the history and what was happening in the video. What better way to learn about traditional Indonesian cultural art form than to hear it from a someone who was Indonesian and to mention that she is the Founder and Principal of the Daya Indonesia Performing Arts Academy.
I trust that you will be just as enchanted and fascinated when viewing this as I was to experience it for the first time.