Bedog Art Festival 2017

Yogyakarta never 'runs out of' art events throughout a year. There's always a lot of events to watch annually, from January to December. All the events make up Jogja definitely a City of culture and art festivals.

One of the currently organized art event was 'Bedog Art Festival'. This annual event was held at 'Banjarmili' studio, a dance studio that is located on the bank of Bedog river in the village of Banyuraden, Gamping, Sleman, the Special Region of Yogyakarta.

The village and studio are not far from Yogyakarta's west ringroad. When we go through jl. Godean, from the ringroad-jl. Godean crossroad, just we need to go ahead to the west. Not far from the crossroad, when we find the first gang, we need to turn left. Heading south, we just need to follow the gang until there's a crowd in the middle of this Banyuraden neighborhood. That's the location of 'Banjarmili' studio.

This year's 'Bedog Art Festival' took time on 28-29 October. Many artists, dancers, musicians, and crew from many countries were involved in the event. They were from various regions in Indonesia like Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Malang, Indramayu, Kotabaru and Padangpanjang, and from overseas like the Netherlands, Germany, the USA, Malaysia, Cambodia and Singapore as well. Not only the artists from these countries, it was also clear that the organizer was making an effort to empower as well as preserve local culture since it performed some local people's traditional arts like 'jathilan' and 'wayang' (shadow puppet theater) with their young players/dancers.

Wrapped in an earthy atmosphere, feel the 'taste' of traditional and modern performing art blend in this festival. It's worth visiting while you're in Jogja.