2016 Event at Trinity Center

We are truly humbled and certainly relieved that our event was delivered and achieved our target.

The festival was 20 minutes late to start with, but the children of Bunga Nusantara performed beautifully, and they were the one who was anxious to perform on time… Well done for them who reminded us the oldies of our old Indonesian behaviour of “jam karet” – in english it literally means rubber time, or late.

But once we have started we can not stop. Thankfully everything went smoothly till the end, despite the fact that everything runs by amateurs

We are grateful of the support and a warm reception for our event by the local Bristolians, who dare to venture out to Indonesia through this event. The turn out at this event was quiet impressive, around 1200 people showed up and nearly half or more of it are the non- Indonesian, Trinity Centre were packed with people. All of the food vendors where doing well, sate was the most popular dish. Laksa Bogor was also sold out before the end of the closing day, not to mention the ever so popular meat ball soup with noodle.

The performers were superb in their own way, from the very cute Bunga Nusantara Dancers, to the semi professional DaDili Dancers.

Me- Band with Mewa as the lead singer

DaDili Dance group before going on stage

Bunga Nusantara Dancers

The Deputy Chief of Mission of Indonesian Embassy in UK, Mrs. Anita Luluhima especially came from London and we were honoured to have her with us almost for the whole event.

As promised, Bristol Lord Mayor Councillor Clare Campion-Smith attended the event with her Consort, where she listen to the Gamelan Music played by Bristol Community Gamelan playing Wilujeng ( a welcoming song from Central Java) before she went on to try the Warung Bu Dian’s famous Meat Balls (Bakso).

Both the Lord Mayor and Mrs. Anita through their respective speeches, support and promote this kind of event, we as the community need to bring and bridge the diverse communities from different cultures and background, and together we can build a city that is vibrant, creative and respectful of each other.

warung bu dian — a taste of Indonesian dishes

Bristol Lord Mayor and the Consort posing for photo session with the committee

Last but not least, what stole the moment was Louis McKenzie, the story tellers who deliver 3 Indonesian folk tales. He was a true storyteller, the guests especially the children where taken to the mythical land of Indonesia, throughout the storytelling, their eyes and ears where glued, their mind filled with an imagined magical journey following each characters of the story through Louis’s voice. This is a true Indonesian tradition of story telling created here at the Trinity Centre, Bristol.