How Important the Role of Curator in Determining a Success of Performing Art Events

Abstract

: In globalisation era, performing art event is necessarily conducted for multiple purposes, either for entertainment or business oriented events. In order to determine the success of this event, the role of curator is very important, although the study of curatorial in art performing still get less attention. Therefore, this paper explains: (1) how curator works in assessing the performing art for an event; (2) what criteria the curator used in assessing performing art. This qualitative research design with a case study was conducted. Data were collected through two instruments, namely interview and documentation analysis. Two curators were involved as the subjects of the study. The findings reveal that the curators so far worked conventionally without thinking some curation models, such as self-reflexive, sampling, traditional, decentralisation curation, virtual curation, artist-curation, and collaborative curatorial platform. In addition, they also claim that some criteria for performing art assessment were not utilized yet in doing their jobs since they only assessed and selected any art works as they wanted to without thinking whether their assessment results met the spectators’ expectation and suitability with the event theme. We need some parties, especially the government to concern on our products such as traditional crafts of Central Java, Javanese cuisines, and batik as our pride. I do really hope that there will be more events like this which allows us to promote Indonesian heritage not only in Central Java, but also all-around Indonesia.