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WELCOMING the 76th Independence Day of the Republic of Indonesia will be celebrated differently on Flores and is the island’s gift to the country and all the people of Indonesia. A virtual music parade called Flores the Singing Island Festival will be held on Tuesday (8/17/2021).
According to the initiator of this festival, Ivan Nestorman, a neotraditional musician from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) during an online press conference, Sunday (8/15) said the music parade can be enjoyed at 14.00 WIB through Youtube channel of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy. The next day, the parade will be broadcast through the Labuan Bajo Flores Implementing Authority (BPOLBF) channel and the Nestornation channel, which is the private channel of neotraditional.
Ivan Nestorman hopes that the Flores the Singing Island Festival will give a new brand to the island of Flores. Not only beautiful nature, but Flores is also a singing island or the singing island.
Ivan’s statement that Flores is a singing island is not without foundation. Jaap Kuns, an ethnomusicologist from the Netherlands once stopped by in Flores and recorded music there around 1930. Even though he came with high hopes to the island, Jaap was still amazed to see the musical reality found in Flores, both in the form of musical instruments and variety unique community song.
“In fact, when he attended a festival in Yugoslavia, Jaap immediately remembered Flores because the music he heard was the same as what he heard in East Flores. From this, Jaap concluded that Portuguese sailors had a lot of crews from Eastern Europe who were cheaper to pay. While in Flores, there was an intense encounter between the culture of the crew and the culture of the island of Flores,” he said.
In Flores, he continued, in the long term there have been quite intense cultural encounters. Flores has many distinctive rhythms such as dolo dolo, bladu bladat, gawi, jai, mbata, ndundu ndake. In this festival, apart from indigenous music, neo-traditional music is also featured.
However, when asked about the involvement of musicians, Ivan immediately answered that this festival involved more than 100 Flores musicians from both the island of Flores and the Diaspora in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali. They will perform simultaneously from districts in Flores, this festival can only be enjoyed virtually through social media platforms, especially Youtube.
“Nevertheless, the people of Flores are expected to participate in singing from their respective homes the theme song of the festival that has been distributed has been tapped first. This virtual treat is the best option right now in the midst of a global pandemic,” Ivan Nestorman added.
Meanwhile, the President Director of BPOLBF, Shana Fatina, stated that the support of the institution he leads for the implementation of the Flores the Singing Island Festival is indeed the time to introduce the beauty of Flores culture to the wider community. Flores is already known for its natural beauty, now is the time for its extraordinary culture to be introduced.
“I hope that in the future this event can be included in the Ministry of Tourism’s Calendar of Events because of the uniqueness of Flores culture which will have a major impact in boosting foreign tourist visits and moving foreign tourists to Flores Island destinations. We, the Labuan Bajo Authority Implementing Body (BPOLBF) will seriously arrange and work on Flores events so that they can be included in the 100 Calendar of Events of the Tourism Ministry,” she remarked.
Shana added that the organization of this event was absolutely arranged to be included in a Calendar of Events. This is important for tourists so that it is easy to find out about tourism events in Flores, besides those travelers will be more interested in seeing the culture, music and destinations in this beautiful Flores area. [traveltext.id]
