Student English Activity (SEA) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) successfully organized the 3rd SEAKATEN at Taman Budaya Yogyakarta (UMY) on Tuesday (10/9). Didik Ninik Thowok as a guest star and other fascinating performances enlivened the event. One of them is Savanna, a new drama club of the English Education UMY initiated by the students of the department. Savanna was performing Malin Kundang story in English style on the 3rd SEAKATEN.
This 30 minute playback drama had successfully attracted the audience attention. Not only involving the students of PBI (Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris) UMY, in this performance, one lecturer of PBI UMY was also taking a part as the main actor, Malin Kundang. The other cast were English teachers from SMN N 5 Yogyakarta, SMP N 3 Ngaglik Sleman, SMP N 1 Yogyakarta, SMK Muhammadiyah 1 Tempel, and SMP Nasional Bantul.
“We had been practicing for eight times to prepare for this performance”, said Didit Hariyadi, the chairperson of Savanna. Puthut Ardianto, S.Pd., M.Pd., the script writer and the director of this performance, was very glad that this hard work had finally been paid off with their actors and actresses’ spectacular performance. “All the cast have done their best. They did the practice, reading the script, and did the recording; it was all their hard work that succeeds this show”.
Savanna itself was established in June 2015 when PBI UMY conducted an international conference in collaboration with JETA (Jogja English Teachers Association). After the performance on the conference, all the members then decided to unite and made the name into SAVANNA. Its objective is to promote either Indonesian or western folktales to society, especially to students and teachers using English in a form of a playback musical performance.
On SEAKATEN performance, the dean of the Language Education Faculty, Mr. Gendroyono, S.Pd., M.Pd., the Head of the English Education Department, Mrs. Sri Sudarsi, S.S., M.InT., and all of the PBI lecturers were watching the performance and supporting Savanna. Puthut who is also a lecturer in PBI UMY mentioned that all the actors and actresses were very glad and excited and thankful since the department put so much attention to this club.
