This year in 2024, it can be called one of the busiest years in the Indonesian musical industry, specifically on Jakarta. As of November 2024, there’s already a few musical shows that got high interest from Indonesian people.
Not only came from fresh ideas, this year the mostly musical shows are based on popular stories from Indonesian or overseas, like "Joshua oh Joshua" which was performed by Cerita Beda Hak Sama and "Keluarga Cemara" which was based on Indonesian popular movies.
There’s also musicals based on American movies, "School Of Rock" which was performed by HI Jakarta Production and "The Jungle Book" by Jakarta Art House and Indonesia Dance Company
Even though the tickets are mostly pricey, the average price is around 200.000 - 1.000.000 IDR (12.61 - 63.03 USD), the musical shows ticket always sold out just for a few day since the first sale was open.
We commonly listen to jazz or pop songs at musical stages, but on October 26, 2024, at the festival which is known as ‘Festival Musikal Indonesia (Indonesian Musical Festival)' there was a session featuring a musical drama performance entitled "Kukejar Kau Sayang (I'm chasing you, darling)".
Kukejar Kau Sayang, The First Dangdut Musical In Indonesia
The Interesting part from this show is, In this show we are presented with strains of dangdut songs. Other than that, the spotlight of this show is how they bring the fun through every comedy that they made. The costume that they used also had bright colors that more added the joy to this show
Ku Kejar Kau Sayang is a musical performance based on songs by young artist Aulion which was written in 2008. This musical tells the story of a household assistant named Ica who really idolizes a dangdut singer named Jay Bahari.
Her obsession with Jay Bahari makes Ica's life filled with color and happiness. But sadly she must sacrifice her job when she gets the opportunity to meet Jay. Touted as the first dangdut musical in Indonesia, this show is planned to be performed again later at the end of November at Taman Ismail Marzuki.
With this show, Aulion and Billy Gamaliel from Indonesia, Kaya as project manager, hope to bring dangdut music to a higher level and attract more audiences across generations, not only in Jakarta or Indonesia, but through international levels.
Dangdut, an Indonesian Music Genre
Dangdut is one of the popular Indonesian music genre that has existed since the 1950s - 1960s. At that time, this genre came from Hindustani movies, Malay and Arabic music, then this genre is known as Orkes Melayu or Malay Orchestra.
Dangdut songs generally have a few rhymes from Indonesian traditional drum, bamboo flute and tambourine. Dangdut's name comes from the sound of Gendang (Indonesia traditional drum) which sounds like “Dang” and “Dug”. The singer who sings the kind of song usually sings with a twisted voice and energetic rhythm.
The First Musical Show in Indonesia
Talking about musical drama like broadway, it was introduced, In Indonesia with The live musical show was introduced in May 2015 through a show entitled "Beauty and The Beast Original Broadway". And now, not only in Jakarta, musical drama also popular in Bandung, Yogyakarta and Bali.
