After the tropical thunder rolls across south Java comes the rain, and each drop has a character. Some sweep across the bamboo roof in high-pitched volleys, and some plop into the puddles one by one, luminous, like silver. Others hit the dried banana leaves with a solid, resonant thunk.

热带的雷声席卷爪哇南部，之后倾盆大雨从天而降，每一颗雨滴都有自己的个性。扫过竹制屋顶的雨滴发出清脆的齐响，一颗接一颗落在水坑里的雨滴发出银子般明亮的声音。打在干香蕉叶上的雨滴则发出坚实洪亮的闷响。

In early Java, they heard music in these sounds and rhythms. They refined it over the centuries into a complex, ethereal form of auditory theater that needs as many as 10 instruments at once, so expansive in tones and harmonies that it cannot fit into any Western style of notation. By now you hear gamelan all over this ancient capital, from the airport public address system to the marbled palace of the local sultan.

早年的爪哇人便是从这样的声音与韵律中分辨出音乐。几个世纪以来，他们将之进行加工，成为一种复杂而轻盈的听觉戏剧，需要10种乐器一起演奏，具有多种音色与和声，西方的任何曲风都无法套用在上面。如今，从机场的公共广播到本地苏丹的大理石宫殿，这座古都到处都可以听到甘美兰（一种印尼民族乐器）的演奏声。

All of Java’s courtly arts, including shadow puppetry and classical dance, first flourished here. They made this small city the heartland of traditional Javanese culture, protected during colonization, wartime, occupation, revolution and years of authoritarian rule. And now, as Indonesia’s voters turn away from the past and reach out for an uncertain but promising future, Yogyakarta has emerged as one of the world’s most vibrant centers of artistic innovation and risk-taking.

爪哇的所有宫廷艺术，包括皮影戏和古典舞蹈，都是首先在这里发展起来的。它们令这个小小的城市成为爪哇传统文化的心脏，经历了殖民、战争、占领、革命与多年的专制统治，这种文化依然被保存下来。如今，印度尼西亚的选民已经摒弃过去，追寻不确定但充满希望的未来，日惹也开始跻身世界上最有活力的艺术创新与冒险城市之列。

This remote provincial city could even play a part in healing a terror-weary world. Not long before the recent attacks in Jakarta, it was here that the world’s largest Islamic organization started a global campaign to repudiate extremism and intolerance, from the madrasa named for a local saint who preached a pluralistic, tolerant form of Islam in the 16th century. There’s even a Muslim academy for transgendered people here, the only one in the country.

这座僻远的省城甚至可以疗救这个被恐怖袭击吓怕了的世界。雅加达的恐怖袭击发生后不久，就是在这里的一所伊斯兰学校(madrasa)中，世界上最大的伊斯兰教组织发起了一场全球行动，谴责极端主义与不宽容行为，这座学校是以一位本地圣人的名字命名的，他曾在16世纪呼吁一种多元主义、宽容的伊斯兰教形式。这里还有一所为跨性别人士开设的穆斯林学校，也是这个国家里唯一的一所。

Little known in the West but familiar throughout Southeast Asia, the city known simply as Yogja (pronounce the ‘Y’ as ‘J’) has been a royal center of art and power since the eighth century, even after Dutch colonials made Jakarta the capital. With several major universities, it has always attracted an artsy, intellectual crowd. As an ancient city and the last remaining sultanate in the country, it has long nurtured the presentations that, for Javanese, give symbolic form to everything from official ritual to the routines of daily life.

日惹在西方罕为人知，但在东南亚家喻户晓，自从公元8世纪，它便是权力的所在地与艺术的中心，虽然后来荷兰殖民者把雅加达定为首府，也没有改变此地的地位。这里有几所重要的大学，吸引着充满艺术气息与知性的人们。作为一座古都与这个国家仅存的苏丹领地(sultanate)，这里长久以来培养着这些演奏，对于爪哇人来说，它为官方典礼与日常生活中的固定仪式赋予了象征性的形式。

Performance throbs from this city’s heart. On the expansive grounds of the Sultan’s Palace at the center of the old city, dance troupes and gamelan ensembles perform every day at 10 a.m. on a grand covered pavilion, the kraton. To signal religions at peace, it is lavishly decorated with symbols of the three traditions that inform life here, Hinduism, Buddhism and, the majority, Islam. In its shadow, children play with stick puppets representing Sita and Rama, iconic lovers of Hindu myth, as the call to prayer issues from a half-dozen loudspeakers, each one slightly mistimed to the others to create an atonal, ambient drone.

表演源自这座城市的心灵。苏丹宫殿坐落在老城中心，宫殿宽阔的场地上，舞团与甘美兰乐团每天从上午10点便开始在名为“克拉滕”(kraton)的大天棚下演出。为了表现不同信仰之间的和平共处，这座天棚上大量装饰着这里的三种主要宗教的符号：印度教、佛教以及占据主体的伊斯兰教。在天棚的阴影下，孩子们玩着代表印度神话中的情侣悉多与罗摩的木偶；六七个扬声器里传出祈祷的呼声，它们播放的时间有着细微的差异，制造出一种和谐的嗡嗡声。

Over the last several years, a new generation of artists has sprung from these rich but formalized traditions. All over the city, choreographers, musicians, filmmakers, puppeteers and rappers are bursting the boundaries of these styles and their conventions. There’s a gallery scene with painters, sculptors and cartoonists whose works have made contemporary art from Indonesia the sensation of events like the last Art Basel in Hong Kong.

过去几年里，新一代艺术家从这些丰富但却显得程式化的传统中脱颖而出。在整个城市里，舞台设计师、音乐家、电影制作人、木偶师与说唱歌手正在打破各种风格与传统的边界。画廊场景充满各种画家、雕塑家与卡通画家的作品令印度尼西亚当代艺术成为上届香港巴塞尔艺术节等盛事上的焦点。

The good news: There’s always something happening on the cutting edge of culture. An art gallery will host a visiting performance artist; a new dance troupe will be re-enacting an ancient myth as interpreted, perhaps, at the Edinburgh Fringe. Only a few events require tickets, and reservations are nearly unheard of. You just show up.

好消息：在文化前沿总有新鲜事发生。一家画廊即将为某位来访的行为艺术家办展；一个新的舞团即将把古代神话重新演绎搬上舞台，或许还将在爱丁堡边缘艺术节上演(Edinburgh Fringe)。只有少数活动需要门票，提前订位几乎闻所未闻。你只要到场就行了。

Even private homes readily welcome strangers to gamelan concerts, less like performances and more like happenings. Restaurants, coffee houses, and a few hotels like Dusan Jogya Village Inn offer themselves as art centers, ready to host the next filmmaker or an impromptu act by an electronica D.J. working with hundreds of gamelan tracks. Rappers set up on the plaza across from the kraton, often calling attention to the plight of marginalized peoples of the East Indies. Festivals pop up like jungle flowers that bloom and fade overnight.

就连私人住宅亦欢迎陌生人参加自家的甘美兰音乐会，它们不像是正式演出，倒像是一时起意的活动。餐厅、咖啡屋与Dusan Jogya乡村酒馆等旅馆充当起了艺术中心的角色，欢迎电影制作者或电子乐D.J带着几百首甘美兰乐曲来组织即兴活动。在广场的大棚之下，说唱乐手们也有一席之地，他们常常呼吁社会关注东印度群岛边缘人群的困境。各种节庆就像热带花朵一样层出不穷，一夜之间又消失不见。

The bad news — or perhaps it’s an exciting opportunity — is that little of this is announced or scheduled in a way that fits into a world of prearranged vacations or advance-purchase airfares. Web-based information is sketchy. You could always call. But this is a place where, as Ry Cooder famously said of Havana, “when the phone rings, it’s like a dog barking — no one pays attention.” Official sources such as the city’s tourism group and most hotels know mainly about static attractions like the museums and temples. Word of mouth, through new acquaintances and friends, is how you come to see its hidden life.

坏消息——或者也可以说是一种刺激的机会——上述这些活动，很少会事先宣布或事先安排，这可不适合这个度假需要事先安排、机票需要事先预定的现代社会。网络上能查到的信息都很简略。你可以打电话过去。但是正如瑞·库德尔(Ry Cooder)形容哈瓦那的那句著名的话，“电话铃响起，就像有只狗叫唤一样——根本没人理”，这里也是一样。该城市的旅行社以及大部分酒店之类官方来源只知道那些静态的信息，诸如博物馆和寺院之类的。在这里结识新朋友，从他们的口中你才能得知这座城市的隐秘生活。

So you show up at the right places, find the right people (this town has coffee and pastry shops like Boston has Irish bars) and leave plenty of messages. You spot the few other travelers at recitals and galleries and become comrades at a glance, comparing hand-scrawled notes as they did a hundred years ago. You get invitations to gamelan evenings, or hear of a gallery opening as if it were a rave, show up and meet an artist who last week was lionized in Paris.

所以说不定你可以来到正确的地点，找到了正确的人（这个城市的咖啡屋和糕点铺就像波士顿的爱尔兰酒吧那么多），得到了不少信息。你在景点和画廊发现了其他寥寥几个旅行者，看一眼就和他们成了同志，好像一百年前那样和他们交换了手写的信息。你得到邀请，去参加甘美兰晚会，又或者听说有什么画廊开幕式，好像那是个锐舞派对一样，于是你就去了，看到一个艺术家，上星期他可能还在巴黎被人众星捧月呢。

Or maybe you just get a cryptic text message telling you to be at a crossroads outside of town. That is the only hint something special may be going on up a dusty farm road, past pens of chickens, goats and a few munching water buffalo. But at its end, a large postindustrial studio is throbbing with activity. Dancers, stagehands, musicians carrying heavy brass gongs, computer technicians with clipboards; all in a swirl and, at its center, the intent, black-clad choreographer Martinus Miroto.

又或者你得到一条神秘短信，告诉你到城外的某个十字路口去。唯一的特别标记可能就是一条尘土飞扬的农场道路，你经过大群小鸡、山羊和几头吃草的水牛，来到路的尽头，就会发现一座巨大的后工业工作室，里面正热火朝天。舞者、舞台监督、音乐家正搬着沉重的铜锣，电脑技师摆弄着电脑；一切都如同一阵旋风，人群中心正是一身黑衣的顶尖编舞者马丁尼·密罗陀(Martinus Miroto)。

Mr. Miroto was born and raised in this city, where dance class is required in high school. Since then he has toured the world and won praise with acclaimed choreographers such as Pina Bausch and Peter Sellars. His own dancing draws on the rich vocabulary of classical Javanese movement, pulling together its rapid, angular, formal phrases into fluid, emphatic statements of personal experience rather than collective myth. Rather than remaining in Berlin or Los Angeles where he studied, he started the Miroto Dance Company, building an arts campus around this high-roofed studio, clad in aged coconut trunks. A performance here may start on a traditional stage or outdoors, on a terrace that lets dancers overflow across the nearby stream, wandering among torches and foliage, or splashing in a pool fed by a waterfall.

密罗陀是在这座城市出生长大的，这里的中学都有舞蹈课。后来，他周游世界，获得了皮娜·鲍什(Pina Bausch)和彼得·塞拉斯(Peter Sellars)等著名编舞大师的认可。他的舞蹈从古典爪哇舞蹈中吸取了丰富的语言，把它迅疾、生硬、正统的表达转换为流畅而坚决的形式，同时又融汇了个人体验，而非集体神话。他没有留在当年求学的柏林和洛杉矶，而是在这里开创了密罗陀舞蹈公司，围绕这栋覆盖着古老椰子树干覆盖、房顶高大的工作室建立起了艺术学校。这里的演出可能会以一段传统舞台表演开始，或是在户外的露台上，让舞蹈者们穿过近旁的一条小溪，举着火把在树林间漫游，抑或跳进一条由瀑布形成的池塘拍打水花。

For the traditional dance he grew up with, one of Java’s most vivid full-scale productions is showcased just a few miles north of town. The Ramayana Ballet, a spectacular staging of the South Asian epic, takes place every night of the year with firelight, extravagant costumes, a full gamelan orchestra and grandeur in the shadow of the nearby ninth-century Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. (The region’s other World Heritage Site, the ninth-century monument at Borobudur, is the largest Buddhist temple in the world and worth a day trip.)

要想看密罗陀从小接触的传统舞蹈，可以到镇子以北几英里的地方去，那里有形式最完整的爪哇传统舞蹈。“罗摩衍那芭蕾”(Ramayana Ballet)把这部南亚史诗精彩地搬上了舞台，全年每晚上演，华丽的服饰映衬着火光，由一个完整的甘美兰乐队伴奏，附近的普兰巴南神庙投下宏伟的阴影——这是一座九世纪的建筑，是印尼最大的印度教神庙（这里的另一处世界文化遗产是九世纪婆罗浮屠，是世界上最大的佛寺，值得花一天时间仔细参观）。

Rather than waiting for that random text message, a good place to start any search may be a special clutch of stages, verandas, studios and classrooms up a red dirt jungle lane. Founded by a leading local painter and choreographer as a retreat for artistic meditation and experiment, the Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardja has become Yogja’s all-purpose center for rehearsals, jam sessions and impromptu performances. Almost all of this is open to visitors, but little of it is scheduled.

如果不愿等待随意的短信，可以去丛林中一条红土路，寻找一片特别的舞台、游廊、工作室与教室。这个名叫Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardja的地方由一位本地著名画家与舞台设计师兴建，可供艺术家们进行冥想与实验，如今已经成为日惹的全能文化中心，有各种排练、即兴演奏与临时表演。几乎都是对游客开放的，但是几乎没有事先计划的活动。

Such a roiling performance scene needs a wrangler, and Yogya has Jeannie Park. As the center’s director she keeps track of dance troupes, musical ensembles and theater companies, telling you who’s doing a pop-up performance that night and who’s conducting open rehearsals, helpful when so little information is available in English. Starting this month, the center begins a monthly series with collaborations between the artists in residence.

演出景象这样活跃，自然也少不了一位管理者，在日惹，这个人便是詹妮·帕克(Jeannie Park)。作为该中心的主管，她负责跟踪这些舞团、乐团与剧团的消息，告诉你晚上会有谁的临时演出，谁会指挥公开彩排，在英文信息这样缺乏的情况下，这很有帮助。这个中心最近每月都会组织一个系列活动，让留驻的艺术家彼此合作。

For the more traditional arts, drop by the Yogyakarta Cultural Office, the Dinas Kebudayaan, in the university district. A staffer, Ibu (Aunt) Dwi, as she is called, is a font of advice and news on all of the classical forms. She has the timetable of performances at the palace, and knows about informal gamelan gatherings throughout the city. She can describe the different styles of puppetry, from the familiar shadow style of the wayang kulit or klitik, or the more bumptious wayang golek. And she makes sure to warn you that the wayang on the Sosona Hinggil pavilion to the south of the kraton is an all-night affair with a cast of hundreds of leather puppets — so bring a pillow.

想看到更多传统艺术，可以拜访大学区内的日惹文化办公室(Dinas Kebudayaan)。一位女员工被人们成为伊布·达维阿姨，可以告诉你各种各样关于古典艺术的建议与消息。她有宫殿演出的时间表，知道城市里不少非正式甘美兰演奏会的消息。她可以告诉你各种不同木偶戏的区别，告诉你普通皮影戏(wayang kulit)和更花哨的歌迪皮影戏(wayang golek)有什么不同，她会告诫你，在Sosona Hinggil克拉滕天篷举办的皮影戏演出是整夜的，会用到几百个皮影，所以一定得带个枕头。

One puppet act in Yogja, however, is far from traditional. The Papermoon Puppet Theater has become a staple of the global arts festival circuit, with enigmatic modernist puppets that tell stories from myth to the birth of modern Indonesia. In one production, a simple tale of long-lost love plays out against a backdrop of the mass killings that took up to a million lives in 1965 and 1966 — such a traumatic subject that it is seldom discussed, not even in textbooks. Words are few for these puppets with moon-shaped faces who, like mimes, express everything in evocative, poignant gestures.

不过，日惹有个非常偏离传统的木偶剧团：“纸月亮剧团”(The Papermoon Puuppet Theater)，它成了全球艺术节盛会中的中坚力量，使用谜一般的现代主义木偶讲述各种故事，从古代神话到现代印尼的诞生。其中一幕剧讲述了一个简单的，关于失落恋情的故事，背景发生在1965到1966年夺去100万条人命的大屠杀期间，这个充满创伤的题材即便在教科书中也是很少提及的。木偶们有着月亮般的面孔，它们的台词很少，像哑剧一样，用挑衅、辛辣的手势来表达一切。

Between tours scattered throughout the year, you can visit the puppets and the people who use and make them, like the founder Maria Tri Sulistyani, at their new studio and performance space, a gracious compound near the Chinese cemetery south of the city center. At a just-ended residency at the University of New Hampshire, Papermoon developed an epic-scale production on the Indonesian genocide that’s unlikely to appear in the country, but is preparing a new series based on traditional myths that bear on modern life.

木偶团全年都要进行巡演，在其间隙，你可以去参观这些木偶，以及制作它和使用它的人们，比如剧团的创始人玛丽亚·特利·苏利斯塔尼(Maria Tri Sulistyani)，另外还有他们崭新的工作室和表演空间，那是一个雅致的院子，位于市中心以南，挨着华人公墓。纸月亮剧团刚刚结束在新汉普郡大学的留驻，排演了一出关于印尼大屠杀的史诗型剧目，不太可能在这个国家上演，但它目前正在筹备一个基于传统神话，又与现代生活有关的系列。

The theatrical spirit runs so strong in Yogyakarta that it has energized the figurative arts as well. Local painters such as Agung Kurniawan, the duo known as Indieguerillas, and the puppet maker and cartoonist Eko Nugroho offer an emphatic, whimsical yet brutal approach that can deliver scabrous commentary on politics and pop culture. As contemporary art of Southeast Asia attracts more attention all over the world, these locals have become global stars, with prices soon to follow.

戏剧精神在日惹非常强烈，令各种具象艺术蓬勃发展。阿贡·库尔尼亚万(Agung Kurniawan)等本地画家、名为“独立游击队”(Indieguerillas)的二重唱，以及木偶制作者兼卡通师艾克·努格罗霍(Eko Nugroho)都带来风格鲜明、异想天开而又严厉的风格，对政治与流行文化发表犀利的评论。在南亚当代艺术日益吸引全球关注的今天，这些本地艺术家也成了全球明星，他们作品的价格很快也将随之上涨。

“As a center of creativity, this place exerts a magnetic field,” according to the influential Berlin-based Matthias Arndt, who has opened galleries in that city and Singapore. Much of the energy springs from communal art spaces such as the Cemeti Art House, which welcome visitors to share morning tea. Updated information on the hottest openings comes from the curator Alia Swastika, based at the Ark Galerie, who also recommends the Art Jog festival, an artist-run event in June that has become a flamboyant center of this scene.

“作为创意中心，这里就像一块磁铁，”定居柏林的业内著名人士马蒂亚斯·阿恩特(Matthias Arndt)说，他在柏林与新加坡都有多家画廊。很多能量都来自塞米特艺术屋(Cemeti Art House)这样的社区艺术空间，它欢迎参观者进来喝一杯早茶。 Ark Galerie画廊的策展人艾丽娅·斯瓦斯蒂卡(Alia Swastika)提供最热门的开幕活动的最新信息，她还推荐Art Jog艺术节，这个由艺术家主办的活动于6月开幕，是艺术场景中一个繁荣的核心。

With the national dance institute based here, there are events almost every weekend, ranging from formal productions to pop-up events. Just this year, the weekly dance performance at the kraton features a rotating series of the area’s top troupes. Don’t be deterred by the scruffy entrance to the kraton off the bustling shopping district of Malioboro Street; once you are inside, it gets much nicer, with uniformed guides.

因为国家舞蹈学院就坐落在这里，所以几乎每个周末都有各种活动，从正式剧目到临时活动应有尽有。今年，克拉滕的每周舞蹈表演推出了这一地区顶尖舞团的轮流演出系列。不要被马里奥波罗街商业区的克拉滕脏兮兮的入口吓住，一旦走进去，就会发现穿着制服的向导，一切也都整洁了许多。

In a search like this, it’s hard not to run into street posters on rap events. Based largely on East Coast styles with a bit of Atlanta steampunk thrown in, crews perform often near the university district and, as in the United States, can take on a political edge. Shaggydog, for example, convened a fund-raiser for displaced people in the Gaza Strip.

在寻找类似活动的时候，也很容易看到街头张贴的说唱乐活动海报。这里的说唱乐以东海岸风格为主，略带一丝亚特兰大蒸汽朋克风格，和美国一样，乐手们经常在大学区附近表演，歌词中往往带点政治色彩。比如“毛毛狗”(Shaggydog)，他目前正在为加沙地带无家可归的人们发起一场募捐。

The Yogyakarta-based Yogja Hip Hop Foundation has taken recent stardom to a level of media-consciousness reminiscent of American groups, with a new full-length film, CDs, T-shirts and online videos of rapping on an M.T.A. bus straight out of Bushwick, Brooklyn, accompanied by an omnipresent gamelan track that softens anything that sounds defiant. The group welcomes visitors to their headquarters in an out-of-the-way, bunkerlike concrete building.

本地的“日惹嘻哈乐基金”(Yogja Hip Hop Foundation)最近出了名，被媒体比作美国说唱团体，它推出了一部电影、唱片、T恤衫和在线的说唱视频，内容是在一辆驶出布鲁克林巴什维克的M.T.A.巴士上说唱，由甘美兰伴奏，令挑衅的歌词变得柔和起来。这个团体的总部位于远离大路的一栋地堡般的水泥建筑参观，欢迎游客参观。

But Western-style celebrity doesn’t seem to be anyone’s goal. That’s clear from a recent event at the Dusun Jogya Village Inn, a homegrown resort that feels as if it’s deep in the jungle though it’s just a few minutes out of the city. Billed as an opening for 11 woman artists introduced by the provocative 80-year-old abstract realist Kartika Affandi, it had a documentary film, a hip-hop troupe with two rappers, a lightweight gamelan ensemble, an immersive performance art work and a dance performance with stark modern choreography, but in traditional Javanese costume.

但是西方式的出名并不是所有人的目标。私营度假圣地Dusun Jogya乡村酒店离城市只有几分钟车程，但给人感觉像在丛林深处，最近，这里举行了一个活动。11位女艺术家举办了一个公开展示，由离经叛道的80岁抽象现实主义艺术家卡尔迪卡·阿方蒂(Kartika Affandi)主持，活动中有一部纪录片、一个嘻哈乐队演奏，配有两个说唱手、还有一个轻柔的甘美兰乐队、一场沉浸式艺术表演，以及带有鲜明现代风格的舞蹈演出，但是都穿着传统爪哇服装。

“In Indonesia we have a concept for this, an event where anyone joins in, and everyone here is at home,” says the proprietor Amron-Paul Yuwono, a theater director and actor, who recently returned from political exile in the United States. “We call it the village, the kampung, but it really means the community.”

“在印度尼西亚，我们有这样一种观念，一个让所有人参与的活动，必须让参与者感到宾至如归，”酒店业主阿姆隆-保罗·约沃诺(Amron-Paul Yuwono)说，他是舞台剧导演和演员，最近刚刚结束政治流放，从美国归来。“我们把这个地方叫做村庄，但它实际上是社区的意思。”