Every two years–on even-numbered years like 2024–we present a special month-long program called SIPFest, Salihara International Performing-arts Festival.
It may be said that SIPFest is the culmination of our various programs over the past two years.
This year, SIPFest presents artists, dance companies, theater troupes, and music groups who have obtained stellar reputation despite their young, fresh age; we’re sure they will only gain in stature in the years to come.
Performers from Australia, Germany, South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia will present high-quality spectacles from 3 August to 31 August this year.
This year’s SIPFest is also special because it will be the first fully offline edition since the COVID-19 pandemic. SIPFest 2020 was held entirely online and the 2022 edition was a hybrid event.
At the 2024 SIPFest, we would like to invite the audience to create, in the truest sense of the word. Re-creation: to make anew the myriad forms/works of arts and cultures with joyfulness and freedom. To create a community both healthy and sensitive to changes and progress.
Jakarta deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with, or be seen equal to, great metropolitans around the world. That it may pride itself with high-quality festivals of contemporary performing arts. SIPFest propels this city forward to that end.
Jakartans, as represented by Komunitas Salihara’s audience, prove that the city is able to jump higher and go farther. To make it may become even more stylish, prestigious, and one that may be characterized by a carefully curated series of contemporary performing arts programs. .
Orde Seni Baru, the new art order. This is the theme of the current SIPFest. There isn’t only a political order, but also an art order. Art is not only to mitigate politics, but to fill in the spaces untouched by politics. Art provides alternatives to the cliches and the stagnancy of politics. Art invites us to renew ourselves and our communities.
Art entices, astonishes, and delights. Art opens up spaces of creativity that have been deterred or restricted by legitimate power. We dream of a different order through art. We press for an art order, in place of political order, as a way to cultivate our nationhood and humanity.
This is the path we have chosen for the 2024 SIPFest, which we will travel upon together with Lucy Guerin, CCOTBBAT, Chong Kee-Yong & Studio C, Jason Mountario & Trio, Numen Company, Jecko Siompo, Megatruh Banyu Mili, Annastasya Verina, and Teater Koma, among others.
The 2024 SIPFest is a ground for artist-performers and audience-communities to share creativity, freshness, and joyfulness. It is an effort to develop a new order, one which is extraordinary.