Balinese Cast and Musician Biographies
Dancers
- Christina Lhaksmita Anandari
Christina Lhaksmita Anandari is a Boston University School
of Education Graduate student, majoring in English and Language Arts.
Balinese dance has captured her heart since childhood, thus she started
to learn the dance, Panji Semirang in particular, at the age of 9. This
collaborative yet eventful performance is an exciting experience for
her as this is her first performance ever in the U.S., and she feels
very fortunate to be given the opportunity to be one of the Balinese
dance casts.
- Iswidyasari Istarto ( Denok )
She has been dancing the Indonesian traditional dances since
she was 7 years old. Dancing experiences include dancing for the Southeast
Asian GAMES opening ceremony in 1997; participated in the Indonesian
cultural night in 2002 at Bunker Hill College and 2004 at Boston University;
choreographed a dance at the cultural night in 2003, perform Balinese
dances with Gamelan Galak Tika at MIT and other various locations for
almost 2 years. She has a strong interest in culture and travel, as
well as in business and investment. After graduating from Northeastern
University, she is currently working in the travel business. The person
sees dancing as a way to appreciate arts, do cultural activities, and
to meet people.
- Cynthia C. Laksawana
Cynthia started learning Balinese dance at age 8 with several
Balinese dance masters at the art gallery of Nyoman Gunarsa in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia. She continued her dancing study at STSI (now ISI) in Yogyakarta
- Indonesia under the direction of ISI Professor Ni Nyoman Sudewi. When
she came to Boston in 1993 pursuing her graduate study in Chemical Engineering
and Engineering Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA,
she had the opportunity to learn more Balinese dances from the renowned
Balinese dance master/composer/singer Desak Made Suarti Laksmi and her
husband, Balinese Dance Master, I Nyoman Catra, the co-founders of Gamelan
Galak Tika of MIT at Cambridge, MA. She has been performing with Gamelan
Galak Tika throughout the years where she is the dance director of the
group. She has been teaching several students who have interest in learning
Balinese dances to keep the Balinese dances alive in Boston area. Together
with her husband Joshua W. Utomo, they founded "Sanggar Kinanthi (tm)"
the Indonesian Art & Cultural Center. She is presently working as Validation
Engineer for Invensys Validation Technologies based in Foxboro, MA.
- Laila Munaf
Laila has been dancing Indonesian traditional dance since she
was seven years old. In 1998 she began her 1st international dance performance
in Turkey. She has been performing Balinese dance with Gamelan Galak
Tika when she came to Boston in 1999. Currently she is a junior at Northeastern
University majoring in Finance.
- Anne Ridwan-Natanagara
Anne is a graduate student of Emerson College majoring in Global
Marketing Communication and Advertising. She studied traditional Balinese
dances as an extracurricular activity, which became handy when she and
her family were transferred to live abroad and she was asked to perform
in many cultural events. Later she studied Sumatra dances from the partner
of Sampan Ismanto, a reknowned choreographer.
- Amme Natasaputra
Amme started dancing at the age of 4. Her first dance was ballet,
but after 5 years of practice, she decided to learn Indonesian traditional
dances. Her passion of dancing became bigger and that’s when she
learned other dances like ChaCha, Salsa and Rumba. At the age of 17,
she became a choreographer for a local high school. Although most of
her years filled with many dances and performances, the first time she
got an opportunity to learn Balinese dance was when she came to Boston
to do her bachelor degree in Suffolk University.
- Amanda Tantri W. Ramly
Tantri is an undergraduate at Pine Manor College majoring in
communication media. She has been studying many types of dances; western
dances and Indonesian traditional dances such as Balinese, Javanese
and Sumatran. When she was living in DC in the 80s and 90s , she performed
several Indonesian traditional dances at the Indonesian Embassy in Washington
DC. "Ballroom Dance Competition" held in Jakarta in 2003 was her 1st
national competition. She is enjoying the great opportunity to be part
of this join venture between the Indonesian, Thai and Indian dancers
in presenting the "Ramayana".
- Joshua W. Utomo
Joshua W. Utomo is a puppeteer/storyteller, poet, writer, and
actor/director. As an artist he has been performing traditional and
modern theatricals plays independently and with various theatrical groups
since 1981. He has also been giving puppets shows/storytelling performances
to children and adult audiences since 1989. In 1990, he created poetry
and children storytelling programs for healing and education purposes.
He earned an advance certification for the standard Javanese Cultural
Studies at LKJ (Javanese Cultural Institute) where he studied
Javanese art and culture with some gurus from the Surakarta Royal
Palace in Surakarta, Indonesia. He obtained M.Div. degree from
Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
and Post-Master Certification in International Mission and Ecumenical
Studies from Boston Theological Institute in 1999. He is also
the founder of The Heal & Grow Center(tm) - a compassionate,
caring, committed, and creative psychotherapy/coaching/yoga/Pilate center.
- Theresia Rorik Wahyudhanti
Rorik is a graduate student of theSchool of Education at the
Boston University, started dancing at the age of 7. She was trained
underPadepokan Bagong Kusudiharjo, in Central Java,Indonesia , to learn
the ‘Kreasi Baru’ Javanese dance. After being trained in
that 'Padepokan' for five years, she began to learn the classical Javanese
style. Her first performance upon her arrival in Boston was in the Indonesian
culture night in May 2004. Being one of the dancers in this epic Ramayana
is so exciting since it would be her first performancewith the Balinese
style.
Comments and questions to natya-exec[at]mit.edu
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