Performance 2019

9 December 2019

In 2019, I entered an intense theatrical collaboration with Teater Lingkar Semarang, a project forged under pressure and trust. We had only two effective weeks to build the performance. The memorization began in Belgium, long before my arrival in Semarang, and from the very first day on Indonesian soil the entire ensemble actors, creative team, and musicians worked in relentless concentration. The performance moved between Javanese and Indonesian, not as a stylistic gimmick but as a living reflection of social fractures.

The play was a sharp social critique centered on low class sex workers living beneath the Kali Ciliwung bridge, women erased from public dignity and pushed to the margins of moral discourse. Their bodies are condemned while their poverty is punished. This stands in stark contrast to high end prostitution in hotels, which is often masked by glamour and quietly admired. The transaction is the same, but respect is distributed according to money. In this world, poverty becomes the real crime. When dignity is denied to the poor, society should not be surprised that many seek prestige through darker routes, from moral compromise to corruption. The stage became a mirror, uncomfortable and necessary, reflecting how class determines who is shamed and who is celebrated.

Naning Scheid

Naning Scheid is a wordsmith, metaphrast, scholar, and thespian whose work moves fluidly between poetry, translation, scholarship, and performance. Born in Indonesia and based in Brussels, she inhabits the space where languages, cultures, and histories intersect, crafting literary and performative experiences that transform meaning across borders.

Her poetry and translations explore the resonance of classical and contemporary texts, bringing Indonesian and French literary traditions into dialogue. Through her translations of La Fontaine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and other canonical voices, she reimagines melancholy, beauty, and wit in ways that speak to a global audience while remaining rooted in the specificity of each language.

As a scholar of comparative literature, she examines the intertextual and transcultural currents that shape literary imagination, illuminating the subtle ways stories, myths, and poetics migrate across time and place. Her research on transcultural intertextuality and transnational literary reception has been published internationally, contributing to ongoing conversations in contemporary literary studies

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