ASEAN Cultural Night is an annual event which was created in cooperation of Embassy of Indonesia in Oslo with four embassies of other ASEAN countries to establish closer relation between ASEAN and the Kingdom of Norway. This event also featured cultural performances of the other ASEAN countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. Each country presented their own cultural performances incredibly.

The Twists and Turns of Journey to Oslo

The struggle of going to a country thousands of miles away in order to give a cultural performance that introduced the name of Indonesia was certainly not easy. Various difficulties have to be undergone by KPA ITB team in order to give an impressive appearance.

"This team is the least-numbered team KPA has ever had," said Saffanah Zahirah (Astronomy 2013), one of the team members participating in the performance of KPA ITB in Oslo. Usually, KPA ITB carries at least 30 members as the instrument players and at least three people as the team officials to assist in preparing the costumes, make-up, and more. However, this time, the team containing only 15 members had to serve both as instrument players and officials at the same time. This situation required the team to be more readily meet the needs of each of their own, including costumes and make-up.

Moreover, the cost of travelling to Norway was fairly high, making the team had to find sponsorship and donations in order to help suppress the burden of costs that should have been their responsibilities. "Our preparation only begun 3 months earlier, both for the practice of playing the instruments and also for collecting fund. We even did some fund raising activities e.g. selling flowers on every weekend, " Saffanah said.

In addition, the presence of several team members that just recently entered the sophomore year who were still preoccupied with orientation activities required them to be excellent in time management. The distribution of angklung also became a big challenge as the number of members were very small thus everyone had to play an extra number of instruments.

The Introduction of Indonesian Culture in the Global Scene

Due to the hard work and cooperation of all members, the team finally managed to bring KPA ITB to Oslo and accomplished their goals. Not only did they perform in the ASEAN Cultural Night event, KPA ITB also participated in various occasions such as the celebration of the 71st Anniversary of the Republic of Indonesia, in which KPA ITB performed the rendition of Indonesia Pusaka and Yamko Rambe Yamko.

Some agendas organized by KPA ITB team while in Oslo included performances and angklung workshops to Norwegian children held at Children Museum with a rendition of Yamko Rambe Yamko, Bambo Dance Song, and a Norwegian children song, Bae Lille Nam. The performances and workshops received a warm welcome from museum visitors.  In addition, Angela Goldin as the Director of the Children Museum also expressed her admiration towards the performance of angklung orchestra.

In addition to official events such as the anniversary of ASEAN, Indonesian Independence Day in Embassy of Indonesia in Oslo, and performances and workshops, KPA ITB also took to the streets to show their angklung performance to foreign tourists and local visitors. In this occasion, KPA ITB provided an opportunity for the tourists and local visitors to try playing the angklung instrument.

Thanks to the impressive performances of Indonesia Pusaka, Bambo Dance Song, Yamko Rambe Yamko, and Mission Impossible soundtrack, KPA ITB managed to attract the attention of many people in Oslo with angklung. Angela Goldin as the Director of the Children Museum also gave a high appreciation to the Embassy of Indonesia in Oslo for bringing KPA ITB. She also hoped that the cooperation between the Embassy of Indonesia in Oslo and the Children Museum can be improved in the future.