BY REBECCA CONROY
SYDNEY — What do Indonesian factory workers making theatre in their spare time have in common with radical TV producers working out of a shack in Marrickville?
In February, a rag-tag crew of community TV producers will be heading to the stinky industrial slums of Jakarta for 12 weeks to collaborate with an Indonesian workers theatre company to create a multimedia performance event.
"Beyond the Factory Walls/We Are Not Machines" is a digital video production and multimedia theatre collaboration between Sydney-based community television group Actively Radical Television (ARTV) and the Jakarta-based factory workers' theatre company, Teater Buruh Indonesia (Indonesian Workers Theatre, TBI).
The project will involve a number of theatre workers from TBI and a small crew from ARTV working together on the production of workers' stories for video, and then collaborating to integrate this video material into a live TBI theatre performance. The project will also result in an edited feature documentary, which will include the workers' edited video segments, segments of the live theatre performance as well as documentary footage of the rehearsal process. The documentary is expected to be released in 2005.
The project is being supported by the Australia-Indonesia Arts and Community Program, an initiative of Asialink, and the Community Cultural Development Board of the Australia Council.
On September 5, ARTV will be presenting an information film night about the project at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre. The evening will also raise funds for the project.
A documentary produced by ARTV in 2001 about the factory workers' theatre company, Teater Buruh Indonesia, will be screened together with John Pilger's 2002 film, The New Rulers of the World. Food will be provided by Food not Bombs collective from 6pm. The film screenings will kick off at 7.30pm.
For further enquiries about the project, phone Rebecca Conroy on 0411 1534 40 or email <basabasi@optusnet.com.au>.
From Green Left Weekly, August 27, 2003.
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