Follow Friday +04

If you know me, you know how much I LOVE K-POP (yes it is a love with capital letters, that is how much I love it lol). And now after more than ten posts, it is surprising that I have not written any single post about K-pop (at least it surprises myself haha).

But now I think it is time to finally reveal my love to not only K-pop, but Korean culture in general. I spent my junior high school days swooning over a Japanese boy group Hey! Say! JUMP because I used to watch Animax a lot back then. In the end of my junior high year, I got to know K-Pop because of TVXQ, and the rest is history.

Well this time, it is not the K-pop that I want to highlight, it is the Korean very own sport, Taekwondo.

Lots of people know that Taekwondo is a martial art. But, not so many people know that you can incorporate Taekwondo with K-pop! If you are imagining a dance choreography of K-pop songs mixed with Taekwondo movement then yes, you got it right. Another example of music and sport together (see World Cup post for previous example).

I am here to introduce you to K-Tigers! They are super duper talented! They are good in taekwondo, they are good in dancing, their movement is powerful and synchronized and bonus point, some of them are cute >__< haha.

They gain lots of popularity because of this cover dance video. They even got the approval from the singer himself! For the original music video you can check it out here.

Just recently, K-Tigers enter an audition to Dancing 9, a dance survival competition in South Korea. Needless to say, they totally left the judges in an awe. It is very smart to incorporate sport with modern music, isn't it?

I will definitely have the same reaction if I were those judges. So, makes sure  you check out their youtube page for more awesomeness.

And eye candy for you guys, here is EXO (one of most popular Korean-Chinese boyband right now) member, Tao incorporating Wushu with music.

Cheers,
filicia
009201200004

From Indonesia to the World: Sasando

As much as I love the contemporary music, it does not mean that I am not giving a deal about traditional music. I even played gamelan when I was in senior high school! Also, did I tell you that I was playing kolintang on my elementary school days?

So anyway, when I went to CBN Indonesia for the creative industry talk, there was this sasando player from  Kupang, Jack Bulan. He has been introducing Sasando to other countries by playing it in the foreign countries. Also he has been using modern technology by connecting Sasando to speaker.

Because I was in a studio, I was not able to record his performance there. Too bad :( He plays very very well. And also, talking about sasando, you might have seen this traditional instrument before from the survival audition Indonesia Mencari Bakat. There was a contestant who played Sasando. His name is Berto Pah.

Anyway, talking about collaborating Indonesian music with other country, I think this collaboration of Indonesia and Japan is brilliant.



Enough for the videos, here I present you, a selfie with Jack Bulan! Hahahaha.

Cheers,

filicia

009201200004

Let's Celebrate!

Everyone living in this world should have known that FIFA World Cup 2014 is happening right now! Though I am not a big fan of soccer or sport in general, I can not miss this glorious event. World Cup is obviously not just a game of soccer between countries. It is a celebration of culture, joy, and unity of the world.

This year, the championship takes place in Brazil, a country well-known for its soccer and also the culture. Take a look at the video of the official World Cup song here. You can see how the culture is incorporated here. And it is so visually entertaining, I mean, look at the burst of bright and cheerful colors.

And also Coca Cola as one of the sponsor released the Indonesian version of "The World is Ours", one of the World Cup song.

Though they do not visually show the traditional side of Indonesia, but Angklung, one of Indonesian traditional music takes part in this song. Cool!!!

Anyway, as a design student, I can not miss mentioning the Google doodle! If you open google as frequently as I did, you will notice then change of the google image everyday. Here is a recap for you guys.

And on the happier note, guys, guess what happened to me because of the World Cup??? I won a dozen of soccer donut from Krispy Kreme!!! You may have known how I like donut from this post, but to actually win free donut, OMG >___<

So, what I did was basically just retweeting a twit, and guess the score for the match between England and Italy. I have to thank my brother for his great intuition in guessing the right score!!! And talking about culture, don't you think that it is very smart of Krispy Kreme to create special donut in the celebration of football fever? And even better that they are having a giveaway by guessing the score. Thanks Krispy Kreme! Yeaaah!

Cheers,

filicia

009201200004

GAMELAN JAWA

(photo via Irene Felicia on facebook - 2010)

Gamelan Jawa? What is Gamelan Jawa? Before we move on further to my own story, it will be much better if you at least have an idea what Gamelan is. Here is the link to the description of Gamelan via wikipedia.

(photo via Irene Felicia on facebook - 2010)

When I was in Senior High School, there was an extracurricular called GAMATIDUS that stands for Gamelan of Bunda Hati Kudus. I first knew about this club during the orientation. There was club exhibitions and GAMATIDUS was part of it. I was really intrigued at that time and I know right away that I wanted to join this club, even though it is relatively a traditional music.

Fast forward weeks later, I was officially a senior high school student. It turned out that I was not the only one who's interested in Gamelan. When my friends and I first joined in, GAMATIDUS was going to perform in an event so the seniors played the instruments and the freshmen learned to sing the songs.

 

I was not really into the singing part, but I stayed though. Some of the freshmen left as the time goes by. Some of the committed ones stayed, and as the seniors got busier with final exams, the freshmen (including me) got the chance to learn and play the instrument. yay!

 

(photo via Luther Halim on facebook - 2010)

 

Learning new things is a fun thing for me. Same goes with Gamelan. There are lots of instruments in Gamelan, including bonang, kempul, gong, kenong, saron, demung, kendang, etc. When we learned at first, we took turns learning a different instrument each week until we are assigned to one instrument later.

Gamelan is similar to an orchestra in my opinion. While it does not have a conductor, the rhythm and tempo is controlled by an instrument called kendang. And guess who played that instrument on that time? 

(photo via Luther Halim on facebook - 2010)

ME!!!

Hahaha, yes that was me in the picture. ^^ Now that I think about it, another reason why I probably was attracted to Gamelan was because they did not sing the traditional songs during the club exhibition. My instructor is amazing. He is old and he may look traditional but his mind is really open. There was once GAMATIDUS got an honor to play in the church. You know, usually there is choir who sings the gospel and the choir is usually accompanied by organ or piano. But on a very special occasion, my friends and I got a chance to perform the gospels with GAMELAN!!! 

(photo via Irene Felicia on facebook - 2010)

Another thing that makes me even prouder is when we joined a National Karawitan Competition in Tarumanagara University. I still remember how I messed up a lot during my practice and was really frustrated. But in the end, we won the third place! Yay! The first and second place went to both schools from Java, so yeah. And hey, that's my instructor standing on the back in the middle.

Up till now, I still think that being a part of the GAMATIDUS is such an amazing experience. Not every school has a full set of Gamelan and not everyone has the will to play Gamelan which makes me feel kind of proud hehehe.

All the photos were taken in 2010, that was around my first and second year of senior high school. Now that I am in my second year of university, I still miss playing it. During these two years I have been visiting my school and GAMATIDUS' room specifically for around 3-4 times. I definitely miss going on practice every Saturday morning and secretly hope that my university will buy a set of Gamelan. I will be more than glad to join the club. ^^

 

hey that's me peeking from kendang in the middle ^^

 

If I got the chance to visit GAMATIDUS again in near future, I will be more than happy to share the story with you guys. Let's just pray for the best : )

Cheers,

filicia

009201200004