#424: 3rd day in Ubud Writers Festival

This post will be about my 3rd day in Ubud Writers Festival, which is the 1st day of the main program too.

The first official main program i attended was Festival Opening by Janet de Neefe. This program was the Janet’s way to welcome the readers and writers as the main participants of this program.. The venue was in Neka Art Museum.

Neka Art Museum

Neka Museum - So Many Foreigners here 🙂

Bali Dancers ~ Welcome Dance

Janet giving speech

The Building of Neka Art Museum

After finishing with the Program Opening, I went to Kori Ubud, to have another workshop session, which is titled ‘Apples are not Oranges: The Fine Art of Reviewing’. The workshop was done by Sian Prior, an Australian journalist who has much experienced in writing review. For further information, please go to her website www.sianprior.com.

Workshop – Fine Art of Reviewing

Here is the synopsis of the workshop:

Most culture vultures depend on well-informed critics. So what are the vital ingredients of an engaging, authoritative arts critique? And how do you avoid the trap of comparing apples with oranges? In this practical three-hour workshop learn how to compress facts, context and evaluation into pithy and persuasive reviews.

And here is some photos of Sian Prior herself, with little biodata

Sian is a writer and broadcaster in radio, television, print and online, specialising in reporting on the arts, literature and popular culture. She teaches Journalism and Non Fiction in RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing course and runs writing workshops for the Victorian Writers Centre and the Northern Rivers Writers Centre. Sian is also an award-winning short story writer whose fiction has been published in ‘Normal Service Will Resume¹ (Cardigan Press 2004), ‘Contemporary Soul¹ (Visible Ink anthology 2005), ‘Tattle Tales¹ (Visible Ink anthology 2006), ‘XXI Visible Inks’ (2009), and The Age newspaper

The Left one - Sian Prior

Sian Giving Speech

About the workshop itself, the explanation is almost all about how to write a beautiful review, especially for art products, such as writings, movies, music, etc. The most important things in giving review are Angle and Opinion. Angle is the core of your review, your main concentration of reviewing point. In order to avoid boredom, you should build your angle interestingly, about something interesting in your reviewed product. Another most important thing is opinion. Don’t forget to write down your opinion in your review, whether is good or not. Another areas which a good review should cover is : The author/director/artist information, the casts (if the product is movie), plot, background, synopsis, another contextual writing (for example, if you review the Avatar, you talk about the 3D technology which is a new technology) to let the readers know that you are capable to review, and etc.

Sian also gave us some tasks, including choose the book/movie we recently read/watch. Then, we wrote down the positive and negative points about that books/movies. After that, we were asked to make our angle, for the very first 2 paragraph of our review. I reviewed The Noticer, which I have written here in my blog. Here is my 2 first paragraph for the task, using English 😀

For some readers, being lectured for something that they might already know is quite unacceptable. However, there is a way to deliver you point of view without lecturing readers. That way is using stories to metaphor, provided with reflectional questions that let the readers search the values inside of the stories by themselves and do some personal reflection.

This combination of both fictional and non fictional writing is the way how Andy Andrews deliver his life experience and moral values through his book, The Noticer. By giving the chance for readers to read through some short stories, this book delivers so many good moral values that we need to cosider seriously in our life.

Some photos I took in the workshop session (again, so sorry for the bad photos.. bad cameras :p)

Before Workshop

After Workshop. Mr David Left (blurred one)

— End of Workshop —

Lunch at Nuri’s

After that, I had lunch in Nuri’s Warung, as my friends said that they have great pork ribs!..

Nuri's Inside-1

Nuri's Inside - 2

Nuri's

The Grill!

And the most important thing is the PORK!!! (i’m so sorry if some readers find this picture illegal or ‘Haram’)

Spare Ribs with Rice..

Close up Picture!

So yummy.. for 70.000 IDR.. Great Food!

— End of Lunch —

After that, i went back to Neka Museum again, to attended ‘Writing The Digital Future’ program, with Dewi Lestari as one of the panelist, and also Sophie Cuningham from Australia. Basically, this conversation was talking about the digital era and social media effect in authors life. Dee (Dewi Lestari) told her experience of her digital book, Perahu Kertas. And then, the authors also talked about their interaction to their readers using the social media tools, such as facebook or twitter. Well, without a good time management, of course the social media itself can disturb their job.

Here are some photos

— End of Session —

Well, i took also some photos of sceneries from Neka Art Museum.

The next program i attended was titled ‘Reproduction Rights and Marketing Books in the Digital Era’. The synopsis is:

The International Publishers Forum presents a discussion on the challenges of ‘copyright’ and the publishing industry. What does the concept mean when the digital world plays an ever-increasing role in the dissemination of information. Aimed at authors, translators and publishers, the panel will discuss the concept of copyright and the role of collective management in the field of reprogaphy.

Well, i just followed half of the conversation, and then i left away :p

I looked around the Museum of Neka, and took pictures

Then, i went to Citibank Lounge, one of the 3 main venues (besides Indus Restaurant and Neka Art Museum).. Voila, i met and took a picture with Clara Ng, very famous authors (especially in children literacy)!! (well, i’ve to admit that my face was weird in photo. I DON’T LIKE BEING TAKEN PHOTOGRAPHS 🙁 )

Citibank Lounge

With Clara Ng

Another Seminar in Citibank Lounge

I also visited Chara Love in Ubud Writers Office (in Citibank Lounge). She is the Accommodation & Travel Officer. She intended to reimburse my money that being used for paying taxi in the 1st day. Lovely and nice person 🙂

Then, I decided to go back to the Casa Luna nearby, have a espresso in Starbucks + walked through the Lotus Garden. Took some photos there.

Lotus Garden

Pura Inside the Lotus Garden

The Left Building is Ubud Starbuck!

After walking around, i went back to hotel, took a bath, then get prepared to go to Maya Ubud Resort to see theatrical performance titled ‘Conference of The Bird’.

My Dinner in Cafe de Artistes was Fried Rice

Fried Rice

Then, headed to Maya Ubud

Maya Ubud Entrance

have to admit that it is such a lovely beautiful and romantic resort/hotel, especially in the evening.. Very great!..

The theater performance itself also marvelous, told us about the journey of the 7 bird to search for their Lord. The story is adapted from Sufi story. It was held by theatre FireFLY. Some info:

‘Come you lost atoms to your centre draw and be the eternal mirror that you saw
Rays that have wondered into darkness wide return and into your sun subside’

Celebrating the Festival theme Harmony in Diversity, theatre fireFLY proudly presents a physical theatre performance of Conference of the Birds, a play based on a 12 Century Sufi poem by Farid Ud Din Attar.

Live instrumentation by Anello Capuano featuring North African, Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Indian traditional music, contemporary choreography by Jessica McCombie and directed by Rehane Abrahams with performers from last year’s Balinese adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With Storytelling, Acting, Singing and Dancing, this theatrical odyssey promises to be a rare treat for the soul.
Join the fireFLY ensemble on this mystical flight in the majestic setting of the Maya Ubud.

9/10 for the performance.. really meaningful and entertaining.

Well, after seeing the performance, i was confused how i can go back to Ubud center, because Ubud center – Maya Ubud quite far, it takes about 10-15 minutes using car, and Maya Ubud such a silent private place without any public transportation. In the confusion, a very beautiful young lady (later on i know her name, Jeannette or Janette maybe), offered me to join with her, because she had her hotel transportation pick her up. She is an expatriate, working in Jakarta  as a drama teacher, and she went to Ubud to become a volunteer in the UWRF program. Unforgettable moment. LoL.

This journey really entertaining, overall. Using my English so much, as so many foreigners here 🙂

That’s for the 3rd day. Took a long time for me to write this, approx 2-3 hours.. So many photos.

Will upload the following day as soon as possible though.

Thank you for reading this post 🙂