Ontosoroh is a collaborative piece between Ade Suharto (dancer/ choreographer) and Peni Candra Rini (vocalist/composer). The work is motivated by the character Nyai Ontosoroh from This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
Banned during Suharto’s New Order regime, the novel is set in the Dutch East Indies in the late 19th century. Ontosoroh, a Javanese woman who embodies all the complexities of her era, is an allegory of Indonesia’s struggle at the time. She represents the emergence of radical new voices in Indonesian culture, voices that paved the way for Indonesia’s developing nationalism and subsequent independence.
As women living and working more than a century since the days of Ontosoroh, Ade and Peni’s collaboration interprets the most inspiring woman in the post-reformation world of Indonesian literature through a contemporary lens.
