Melbourne Fringe Festival berlangsung dari
akhir September hingga delapan belas
Oktober. Festival ini menampilkan ragam
karya seni lintas budaya, salah satunya
Samson. Yakni komedi fisik berbasis cerita
rakyat Sumatra yang dipentaskan oleh
Shannon Thambi Lim. Selengkapnya, berikut
perbincangan saya dengan Shannan mengenai
inspirasi, proses kreatif dan latar
belakangnya.
My name is Shannan Thambi Lim and I am a
writer and performer.
Samson adalah kisah seseorang yang masih
muda yang belum pernah meninggalkan rumah.
Kemudian Samson memutuskan untuk pergi
menjelajah dunia. Kata Shannan dalam
perjalanannya, Samson bertemu dengan
tokoh-tokoh dari cerita rakyat Sumatera
dan budaya Melayu seperti Kuntilanak,
Harimau Jadian dan Malin Kundang. Ia juga
berjumpa dengan karakter umum dunia
seperti Putri Duyung atau Mermaid.
It's about this character called Samson.
He's a, like a innocent young character
and he's never been outside of his home
before. And one day he decides to see what
life is like beyond the safety of his
town. And so he meets these characters
and they are inspired by Sumatran
folklore, Minang folklore,
Indonesian, Malay folklore. Besides the
stories from Sumatra, we also look at more
generally the folk stories of that part
of the world, that part of Southeast Asia.
Characters that people are familiar with
like, like very famous ones like
Kuntilanak or I don't know if people know
the Padang folk story, Malin Kundang.
Those are other characters like a mermaid,
a giant.
Menurut Shannan, cerita Samson ini adalah
metafora ketika seseorang merantau, dunia
yang ia jumpai mungkin berbeda dengan
kehidupan di rumahnya.
The character I've been developing for
about a couple of years, but this story
itself, about six months. The main
metaphor of the show
is well, it's based on-- it's very
important to Minang people the concept of
Merantau. One day you go outside of your
home and you experience the world. So I
think that was the base metaphor for this
show. Just for people in general, I think
it's a coming of age story and I think at
some point in your life, you probably go
out to the world and you realize that life
outside of your family or your home can
-be different to how you grow up.
-Shannan mengatakan, ia memadukan tradisi
Sumatera dan Melayu dengan dongeng lain
karena ia ingin memperkenalkan karakter
khas Sumatera dan Melayu tanpa
menghilangkan rasa akrab terhadap karakter
-yang umum terkenal.
-Interesting thing with the show is because
I work with a lot of people who don't
have Indonesian heritage. Is that these
characters, these archetypes are actually
quite universal. So there is, definitely
is a mermaid character from Indonesian
tradition, you know, Duyung, Putri Duyung.
The Mermaids character, uh, around in the
Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia,
Singapore et cetera. All these characters,
they're quite universal. So we have our
version in Southeast Asia and they have
them in Africa, Europe et cetera. I wanted
a variety of different characters and
some characters are quite specific to
Sumatra or Indonesia, like Harimau Jadian.
But I sort of wanted people to see that,
you know, the folklore from my culture is
similar to theirs. Yeah, there's
-universality.
-Kemudian Shannan menjelaskan teknik
panggungnya, yaitu ia menggunakan kostum
yang berbeda-beda.
So, the main character I play is like a
innocent young boy, that I have the
physicality of someone who's has a lot of
energies. Very young, innocent. And then
eventually meets the Kuntilanak character
and so I have a little costume change
quickly. And for the Kuntilanak character
I try to look at the representation of
Kuntilanak in like, you know, Indonesian,
the horror films from recently but also
like in the sixties, seventies. So it was
a lot about the eyes. I think she has like
the intense stare and she has the teeth,
the fangs that she, you know, snarls, she
shows people. In our story she's a
performer, she's a dancer. So I have to
dance a little bit as Kuntilanak which is
very funny. Um, and then for the Putri
Duyung that is more of a silly character.
So I changed my voice. I do a falsetto,
it's a very low budget physical comedy
show. So, to show that she has a tail, a
mermaid tail. I just keep my legs together
as if I have a tail. I hop around the
-stage as if I have a mermaid's tail.
-Di Samson, Shannan memasukkan karakter
kuntilanak atau Pontianak karena sangat
terkenal dan ia memadukan elemen
tragedi dengan pemberdayaan perempuan dari
tokoh hantu ini. Kisahnya diadaptasi agar
tokoh polos Samson belajar tentang dunia
melalui kuntilanak.
Kuntilanak, I think she is the most
popular, the most iconic character of
Indonesian ghost stories. You know, she's
called Pontianak in like Singapore,
Malaysia, Brunei. But we love her because
it is that story of there's such tragedy
with that story. But on the other side
there's such empowerment and why I
included it in the show. Number one, yeah,
because she's so instantly recognizable
to, you know, anyone with our heritage.
But we adapted the story so she has her
own story of tragedy and empowerment in
The Samson Show. And I think it was good
for this innocent character, Samson, to
hear her story and learn about the
world.Through her and she also in the
story I wrote, plays an important part to
-his family history.
-Dan seperti kisah kuntilanak di televisi,
di cerita Samson pun, Shannan memadukan
kisah horor dengan komedi.
Indonesian horror cinema or read the
stories, I think it's always a combination
like with Southeast Asian storytelling of
comedy, horror, grotesque, silly.
I like because I think that's life. I
think life is beautiful and it's funny,
but there's also sadness in it. Overall, I
wanted like comedy upbeat show, but I
think there's more humor when you also
show just a little bit of darkness as a
contrast. It's fun to watch, like I watch
all those films with my family, and you're
like a bit scared, but you're also
laughing. I like the combination of all
-those emotions in one story.
-Shannan juga menceritakan latar belakang
keluarganya. Ia lahir di Singapura dan
pindah ke Australia pada usia sepuluh
tahun. Ia berasal dari komunitas
Minangkabau. Shannon mendapatkan
pendidikan formal di bidang film dan
desain serta pelatihan teater di Prancis,
-Inggris, dan Australia.
-So, I was born in Singapore. And move to
Australia when I was ten years old. And I
come from uh, Minangkabau community,
Singapore, and on the West Coast of
Malaysia, Melaka bordering Negeri
Sembilan, which is like a whole state
where nine tribes migrated one day from
Sumatra to Malaysia. So my grandparents,
my great grandparents all come from this
Minang community in Malaysia. And I've
always you know, like I said to you
earlier, Indonesian, like my culture is
very important to me and Minang culture,
as well as sort of the general, I guess
you'd say like Malay culture in Malaysia
and Singapore. And because I mostly grew
up in Australia,
I have to make an effort to remember the
stories from my culture. And I
studied film uh, and design and after I
graduated, I also started
studying performance clowning. I went to
France and the UK, and I've done a
little training in Australia as well as a
clown. I have trained in Western theater
tradition, and I think the technique is
very good. So it was very useful to me,
but this I could tell that, you know,
often if you're in a-- you're in the
school, you're in a workshop or a class,
their references are
Western references, and I have a totally
different set of references for me. So it
was very easy, I think, to take that
Western style of theater but draw from my
own personal heritage and experiences. I
think that's what the show Samson is.
-That's what I think I do with my work.
-Ketika membicarakan tentang karirnya di
mata orang tua, Shannan mengatakan bahwa
orang tuanya merasa lebih nyaman jika ia
bekerja di bidang lain. Namun, setelah
menyaksikan Samson di Melbourne Fringe
Festival lalu, di mana Shannan telah
berkarier di bidang pementasan selama
sepuluh tahun, ibunya merasa sangat
bangga.
So I have had a few different career
paths. I'm also-- I've worked as an
English teacher and I've taught at a
university and I was a TV writer for a
so I think my parents have different
opinions to my different careers.
So like when I'm a teacher or a lecturer
at a university, they're very-- they feel
very comfortable with that. They feel very
proud. When I'm in the performing arts,
they're a lot more Și... [tertawa] But my
mom came to my last performance of Samson
on Sunday and she seemed genuinely very
proud. And she's like, "I didn't know you
could do all those things. How did you
come up with that story? I didn't know you
could perform in front of people."
Because I've been performing for ten years
and on Sunday was the first night I had
invited her.
Soal antusiasme penonton, Shannon
mengatakan bahwa penonton di Melbourne
terbiasa dengan karya seni dari berbagai
budaya, sehingga karyanya disambut hangat.
Shannon akan rehat dari mementaskan
Samson, lalu sekitar setahun lagi
membawanya kembali ke Melbourne, kota-kota
lain di Australia, serta jika
-memungkinkan ke mancanegara.
-The
broader audience in Melbourne has been
very good, I think. You know, I think in
Melbourne audiences are used to and they
like to see work from all different places
and all different-- from different
sources of inspiration. So yeah, it's been
great for people who don't have
Indonesian heritage to see it. I think
they said they've learned a lot of things
or are interested in the stories in the
folklore. They want to do more research.
It's also been really nice to have
Indonesian people, Southeast Asian people,
to come and see this show and then talk
to me about it afterwards. Sometimes it is
a bit difficult to find like Indonesian
Southeast audiences, Southeast Asian
audiences at a Fringe Festival. So that is
something I want to work on to get more
art people to see the shows. But yeah, the
ones who came, they were really great.
Going to take a little bit of a break and
develop. I have a couple of other projects
I want to develop. But in about a year's
time, we'll bring Samson back to Melbourne
and other places around Australia. Maybe
even somewhere internationally. That's the
plan. So, uh, we'll spend the next year
-just sort of planning out-
-Mm.
-Where we can take Samson.
-Demikian tadi pendengar, rangkuman terkait
Samson yang dibawakan oleh Anne Parisanne
untuk SBS Indonesian.
