More than a hundred musicians, dancers and scholars from Indonesia and around the world will congregate in Washington this weekend for “Performing Indonesia: A Conference and Festival of Music, Dance, and Drama,” Oct. 31–Nov. 3, at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The four-day festival includes elaborate evening performances of music, dance, drama and shadow puppetry, daylong “Gamelan Marathons” and an academic conference on Indonesian music, all highlighting variations on Indonesia’s performing arts, from the traditional to the experimental.
All events are free and open to the public; free tickets are required for the evening concerts. Indonesian food will be available for purchase on Saturday and Sunday. The performance on Thursday, Oct. 31, begins at 7:30 p.m. The festival hours for Friday, Nov. 1, are 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, and Sunday, Nov. 3.
For more information about the Freer and Sackler galleries and their exhibitions, programs and other public events, visit www.asia.si.edu