With Culture a Masterpiece is Made

On Thursday, 7^th of February 2019, a spectacular exhibition was held in Darunnajah Islamic Boarding School. D’ICE (Darunnajah Indonesian Cultural Exhibition) is a yearly event committed by the fourth grade students of Darunnajah. The 3^rd D’ICE took place in the basket ball field. D’ICE was activated in order to exhibit the long-lost cultures and traditions of Indonesia that almost fade and disappear by the era of globalization.

This year’s D’ICE is led by Muhammad Faisal (15) and Akbar Aiszikry (16), the students of Darunnajah. The entire fourth grade participated in committing this event, with a total of 90 students with different parts and jobs. Many types of shows and performances are exposed this year.

The 3^rd D’ICE began with a phenomenal Grand Opening at the first. This Grand Opening contains various different shows including Drama of the History of Indonesia, continued by some sort of traditional dances. Flags of Indonesia are waved followed by its provinces from Sabang to Marauke. The Grand Opening reminded us about the motto of Indonesia, ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’, which means Unity in Diversity. The national scout troops, the Pencak Silat (Indonesian Martial Arts) and the mighty Gymnastics performed during the show, breaking hard blocks, making scout signals, jumping from one place to another.

The next show is the Indonesian collaboration dance. The Ulujami Dance Show exhibits three different traditional dances from a mixture of regions of Indonesia. The first dance is Tarian Manuk Dadali, a famous dance move from Aceh, continued by the Tari Sajojo from Papua, and finally the Dinding Badinding dance from Padang.  For the collaboration we had the Cicak song as the closing music for the show. This performance includes students from grade two, grade four and Intensive class, total of about 50 dancers on stage.

The third is a musical drum show. The Wonderful Indonesia is a squad of remarkable students playing traditional music, using various traditional instruments; Angklung, Xylophone, and buckets for the drums, with two vocals for the show. The songs are; Manuk Dadali, Papacul and Tersimpan di Hati. This drum show included students from grade two, grade three, grade four and Intensive class.

The next is a musical drama known as Opera Van Nusantara. This musical drama is cabaret, which only uses the sound of the audio. This drama is about a Bali man who wanted to know more about Bali culture and its history, so he decided to go on an epic quest to find what he seek. The entire show was played by the Intensive class.

The last but not least is The Fantastic Knights, a collaboration of Martial Arts and Gymnastics of Indonesia combined doing dangerous acts such as breaking woods, bullocks, steels, jumping from one to another, combat with sticks, nunchaku and other weapons. This performance is very dangerous and it’s performed by some remarkable people, who are trained for months.

Thus, ends the phenomenal exhibition. From this great event, we can show that we have to rise and take back our endangered and extinct cultures of our nation. Because one of our motto is, The Culture of a Country is the Nation of a Santri. Written by: Mumtaz Cikal, Tenth Grader Journalist