KTF FOR CULTURAL MISSION 2011

I do promise that I want to write about the journey of KTF UI, a group of dance which I’ve been in since sSeptember 2010. First I had never imagine that I can go abroad with mission to spreading Indonesian traditional music and dance, I can’t even do dancing, and I bet I used to be bad dancer ever. This chance come from my close friend Cessa. She’s invited me to join KTF, but I told her, I’m not that good in that kind of motoric activity, but when she offered me a chance to representate Indonesia in Europe through dancing. I have no word beside YES I’M IN ! Cessa introduced me to Milla, she’s the dance couch of KTFUI and with my Nandak in Abnon experienced she’s obviously believe that I can do dancing. Then I had some interview with KTF founder named Anneke and Olla, after they finally made decision that I deserved to join. KTF didn’t have any guy member since the first time its found, this cultural mission made KTF need to recruit some guy. Here we are, after some close reqruitement process they meet us. Me, Ayip, Sindhu, Adlan, and Adri at the first time we might be not very excited, but the excitement getting higher during the process of reach that goal Du Sud’s cultural mission 2011. And here the process.

We have to practice and practice very hard to got professional skill of tradition dancer and musician. We practiced like two days in a week first, yet the intensity of practice increase when it closer to our depart time, we can even practice all day long until night fall. We practiced several danced that representate some part of Indonesian region and island, here is the list of the dance:

• Saman dance from Aceh,
• Piring dance from West Sumatra,
• Marsitami – tami from North Sumatra,
• Gaba – Gaba from Maluku,
• Mpok Ngigel from Betawi,
• Zapin dara which kind a Melayu dance,
• Kencet gantar dance from Borneo island,
• Pendet dance from Bali,
• Gewaya dance from East Nusa Tenggara,
• Topeng Mpok Ngigel from Betawi.

Each person have some role of dance, most of us have to do two until three dance, but special for man we have to do four dance, because of we had just few number of man compare with woman. Talk about the 32 member of KTF’s cultura, misson, here I list the name of our group:

Aurora Yusdar. Anneke Puspa Calliandra. Cindy Amelia. Jamila Siregar. Cessa Putri Wahyuni. Tri Hapsari Soesilo Putri. Ayip Lufti Hidayatullah. Aldi Hawari. Sindhunata Hargyono. Karima Irfandi. Adri Humam. Imam Firmansyah. Hazimi Adlan. Nyoman Sri Handayani. Siti Rahayu Permatasari. Novely. Melanie Setyaningrum. Shelby Liriara. Dian Rahma. Gea Adhasta. Gemelli Eka Putri. Tyas Puspo Wardani. Rizky Amelia. Firly Amalia Rizky. Hasty Triana Putri. Fauzia Rahamtika. Rienjani Nur Bani. Shinta Dewi Octavianie. Merija Lovita Kintamani. Shalita Anindya. Tarawina Raiyanasari. Sisy Rahman

Is not that easy to manage all the 32 people to practice together, arrange the schedule of meeting, and so on. But we went through all the proccess. We had done many things, happy, sad, struggle. We have responsibility to our study, but we have to become professional because we choose to be involved in this cultural mission.

Several kind of processes beside practice that we should face are: Collecting money (this is the hardest part, general meeting, propose for sponsorship, manage Radha Sarisha (farewell performing before we depart), propose to get visa Schengen, and many all.

Very interesting part that we could never forgot is how we collect money. Money that we should have for this cultural mission is very big number, we should at least reach 500 million rupiahs (US$ 50.000) to make everything goes well. With big determination and optimistic view of us, we could collect that big number of money. How we get money? That’s a question that have very long story to be answered. We do everything to get that money, from zero until have 5 and 8zero behind. We sell snack foods to our friends, we propose sponsorship, we went to crowd place at weekend to selling cold drink, we ask money to our parent, we propose money to university, and many things in case of reach that 500 million rupiah. We somtimes got some mockery from people whom like make fool of us, some people underestimate our effort to get that money, because they think that we did such a ridiculous way, but after all finished, we could mock them back, and talk to their face hello people we made it, we go to Europe, and you still here do nothing.

We are the 32 members of KTFUI become very close to each other, we have passed many phase of time happy, sad, fight, tired, laugh, smile together. From every part we have already passed we can get many lessons, from mistake we made we have to admitted it and musn’t repeat again. From good things we had, we should increase that, so we can be better next. This Journey of KTFUI cultural mission can be one of from zero to hero story, from now maybe the mission already done we could take ease breath and continue our ordinary day as usual, yet I have to say This experienced with my beloved 31 friends can be long last memories that will always live forever. Stories that will be too long to shared, but too priceless if we just keep it for ourself.