Melbourne Soreng

Grew out of a long-running exchange between Victorian College of the Arts (VCA, University of Melbourne) and Festival Lima Gunung — a fiercely independent, community-based festival in the mountains north of Yogyakarta, led by musician and cultural figure Sutanto Mendut. VCA Social Practice students, coordinated by Danny Butt, had travelled to the festival in previous years; in March 2020 Sutanto Mendut visited VCA to workshop the idea of a "Melbourne Soreng" — soreng being a mode of traditional Javanese dance — with the aim of VCA dancers returning a performance to the festival.

COVID-19 made that impossible in physical form. Led by choreographer and VCA Dance Lecturer Linda Sastradipradja, working with ISI Yogyakarta's dance department, Hartono — then a PhD researcher in Interactive Composition — built a virtual world for VCA and ISI dancers to rehearse and perform together remotely, turning a cancelled exchange into a new one.