الأخبار

By Azimah Zainal

GOMBAK – The Indonesian students under the banner of Persatuan Pelajar Indonesia (PPI-IIUM) had gathered full house on Friday (4 October) in the Main Auditorium of IIUM for the closing ceremony of the Indonesian Day 2019.

Wearing diverse patterns of Indonesian batik, influenced by the different ethnic cultures, gave the highlights of the richness of the diversity of the Indonesian cultures.

In line with Indonesia’s official national motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, translated as “Unity of Diversity”, they were able to pull off extraordinary performances towards their goals of sharing the Indonesian cultures.

The amount of practice and effort put into the preparations of the event were seen in the Indonesian cultural performance of the Gayo ethnic group from Gayo Lues, Aceh province in Sumatra, known as Saman Dance.

It received loud applauses from the audiences after the team showed an incredible synchronisation in the fast-rhythm dance throughout the 12- minute performance.

The closing ceremony gave an amazing cultural impact and exposure on the diversity of ethnic groups in Indonesia through the Busana Exhibition.

Accompanied by live acoustic band and the excited cheers of the audiences, different busana from various states of Indonesia was attractively presented by the representative students through ‘The Fashion Show’ to illustrate the uniqueness of its state.

The long most awaited performance on the Indonesian culture and arts was later introduced through the drama plays to describe its inheritance.

The smart approaches of inserting a variety of cultural performances in between the plays had excellently captured the audiences’ attention, especially the surprising entrance of traditional mask dancer of Tari Topeng across the audience front seats.

A beautiful sounding of Indonesian traditional musical instruments, the angklung, which was made from bamboo of different length and width to produce a certain rich sound, was also introduced to the audience.

The ceremony ended with PPI-IIUM’s advice to the younger generation of the Indonesians on the amanah of taking care of the existence of Indonesia’s diverse culture from getting disregarded. ***