The 8th Annual Senggigi Festival in Lombok got off to a spectacular start on Saturday, 19 July 2008, with around ten thousand spectators lining the main street of Senggigi to witness the colourful Opening Parade. This year’s Festival was the biggest and best ever held on the island, with an amazing variety of performances and participants!
The event started with a formal opening ceremony held in the centre of Senggigi, near Asmara Restaurant. The ceremony was attended by government dignitaries, including the Director General of Marketing, Sapta Nirwandar from Jakarta, and special guests from around Indonesia, including popular Indonesian television star Ibu Connie Sutedja, who makes a point of being at the opening ceremony each year.
There was a carnival atmosphere of excitement amongst the crowd on Saturday afternoon as the streets filled with people eager to witness the spectacular parade, including hundreds of tourists who were treated to a parade of the best music, dance and cultural performances in Lombok.
Each district of the island is represented at the festival, displaying an incredible array of traditional customs and talents, particular to each village or district. Colourful sarongs, delicate lace and luminous silks, flowers, sequins, beads and elaborate headdresses fill the parade with light and colour, with everyone from charming small children to beautiful maidens to regal old matriarchs and grandfathers proudly representing their respective regions.
In addition to those representing the individual provinces of Lombok, special guest artists also attended the festival, including traditional performers from Aceh Darusalam and Banyuwangi in East Java.
There was a huge variety of dancing, performance theatre and re-enactments of historical events and cultural traditions during the Festival, as well as music from Lombok’s famous Gendang Belek (big drums), traditional gamelan orchestras and not so traditional, but immensely popular, kecimol and dangdut with crowds of young people dancing along. The energy and spirit of the performers caught the imagination of the fascinated crowd and provided a great occasion for tourists and locals alike.
Many of the hotels and local businesses in Senggigi got into the spirit of the Festival, with groups dressed in colourful costumes representing their respective businesses joining in the parade. The staff of Restaurant Taman wore a variety of costumes from Lombok, including a bride and groom wearing traditional Sasak wedding outfits; the beautiful costumes worn by the staff from Qunci Villas were outstanding; likewise the Senggigi Beach Hotel and The Jayakarta, which both included groups of musicians; and the Holiday Resort with their decorated cidomo (Lombok horse cart) and ladies wearing blue lace kebayaks.
The parade ended around 5pm and the crowd then moved to the Senggigi Square, where stalls and shops have been set up for an art market, displaying and selling traditional handicrafts, clothing, wood, pearls and other distinctively Lombok products. The market is open every day for the week of the Festival until Friday, 25 July.
There are also “peresean” (traditional stick fighting) competitions held every afternoon in Senggigi Square and live cultural performances of dance, music and theatre each night from 8pm until 10pm. The performances are free and all visitors are welcome to attend.
