Karen Elizabeth Sekararum is the managing director of the Mangun Dharma Art Center and has been performing in Java since 1990. A dancer and a pesindhen (singer), Karen Elizabeth Sekararum has performed all over East Java. She has performed in wayang kulit, ludrug, ketoprak, jaran kepang, dance dramas and receptions. She has appeared with Kirun, Manteb, and Anom Suroto, among others.
"Certain things remind me of the two years we spent in Indonesia during my childhood: the smell of frangipangi flowers, and the cloves in kretek cigarettes, and the determination that marked me as a child. I succeeded in dancing the Hanoman monkey dance even though officially I wasn't allowed to as a girl. The memory that resonates the most, though, is how I'd sing along with the radio when gamelan music came on in the car. I told my family: this is what I'm going to do with my life. I now live my life's love: dancing and singing and leading the life of a traditional Javanese performer here in Tumpang."
"Living in the village is often more frustrating than gratifying, what with the black magic and scratching out a living; and there are times when life here mystifies me still, even after 12 years. When I first came to Tumpang and soaked up the sensations of life at the art center, people called me the 'flower of the padepokan', and the 'sun rising in the east'. Being called these things makes me feel a moral obligation to the art community at large and our neighborhood in particular. We try to give as much back to the people in the neighborhood as we can, and as far as our musicians and dancers are concerned I'm as good as their second mother and benefactor. We're related to practically every family around us, and our two children both love to dance, so lesson days are like a big party."
"Soleh suspects that I was Javanese in my last life and that's why I fit in so easily with the community here -- my two girls also move gracefully between the two worlds of their American mother and their Javanese lives. They are born artists and delightful in all their endeavors. It is with endless pride that I watch Condro, who is already twelve, and Ndaru who is almost seven develop as dancers and musicians.
I learned the beskalan dance from Mak Riati, who was borned in the 1930's -- older Javanese are never sure when they were born or how old they are! Mak Ti, as she was called, started performing around 8 or 9 years old. Beskalan was used as part of the tayuban fertility drinking party celebrations in Malang and in the Tengger mountain ranges where it was very important, and she was very much in demand until she quit 30 years later. She said she married about 16 times, but they never lasted and she never had any children; she said the men were all rogues. It was a great boon when the old dancer agreed to perform at the Mangun Dharma Art Center after decades of never dancing. In 1993, Mak Ti graced both the art center's yearly anniversary celebrations and a national art festival held at the art center.
Mak Riati died in 1996."