An opening ceremony is the crucial part of an event as it marks the important milestone and plays a significant role in giving the impression of the entire yet-to-be event, and the Opening Ceremony of the most anticipated pan-Asian multi-sport event, Asian Games 2018, is no exception. Last weekend we interviewed Adinda Nindyachandra, Production Assistant of the Choreography Team (Ekosdance Company) of the 2018 Asian Games’ Opening Ceremony.
As the fragment of the bigger event, the 2018 Asian Games Opening Ceremony team members have been gearing up to prepare for the spectacular opening remarks. According to Adinda—whose day-to-day task revolves around managing the audition process, outsourcing over 1000 dancers, coordinate with leaders from various dance groups, liaise with costume, and content department—to train the dancers for the 2018 Asian Games Opening Ceremony, the team needs 17 trainers, 2 choreographer assistants and at least 5 production assistants.
“Right now, we are in the compound rehearsal stage, where each segment that consists of various dancers rehearse on its own. We rehearse for 4 hours per segment. During compound, our only day off is Friday and on weekends we usually rehearse from 9 AM – 10 PM”, Adinda explained. With the very busy routine with little or no down time especially on weekends, we may wonder how the team keep the fire burning and feel motivated? According to Adinda, “We appreciate even the smallest fun habit to keep us pumped! For instance, we have what we call as a home base song, namely ‘Let’s Go’ from Tiesto featuring Icona Pop. In every rehearsal, this song marks the beginning and the end of the rehearsal. And now everyone is stuck with the song!”
The CEO of Net Mediatama Televisi, Wishnutama, will lead both opening and closing ceremonies as the Creative Director of the 2018 Asian Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies. His work on the ceremonies will be supported by other talented Indonesian artists, such as Eko Supriyanto or Eko Pece and Denny Malik as the choreographers, Addie MS and Ronald Steven who are in charge for the music, while Rinaldi Yunardi and Dynand Fariz are responsible for the fashion styling.
Adinda’s first encounter with the 2018 Asian Games Opening Ceremony team started from her involvement in a Melbourne-based leading dance centre for independent artists, Dancehouse Melbourne, as an intern. During Adinda’s duty in 2017, Eko Supriyanto had his Australian premiere of his contemporary performance there, named SALT. “Fate intertwined, and we just went from there”, Adinda said.
Eko Supriyanto or Eko Pece himself is a notable contemporary dancer and choreographer in Indonesia. He was once the dance consultant for Lion King on Broadway. During his masters in Dance and Choreography at the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, he was a dancer for Madonna for 6 months that made him perform in at least 268 shows.
“He has been actively creating and performing for years, not to mention bringing Indonesian contemporary dance to the international world. It is pretty obvious why he is the right man to be in charge for the most anticipated Opening Ceremony of the year”, Adinda explained delightfully.
Adinda’s devotion to the team derives from her longing desire to market art to the right target audience and makes art to be more appreciated in Indonesia. Currently the team is preparing spectacular ceremonies which are in accordance with the Asian Games’ slogan “Energy of Asia”. They hope the ceremonies will fully represent the diversity in Indonesia.