About Ery Mefri & Nan Jombang

What first strikes a viewer about the Nan Jombang dancers is their obvious display of strength in execution accompanied by a sinuous grace in their quality of movement. No effort is wasted, there is no excess of emotion on the part of the dancers, who train as a family with passion and rigour.

When you later learn that principal dancer Angga Mefri is not even technically trained as a dancer, your awe will be complete. The persuasion of the Nan Jombang troupe lie beyond their stage presence and precision of movement: in their village, they are well-known and respected as an artist family. As a group, their dedication to their art is palpable, both on and off the stage.

As a choreographer, Mefri is only just beginning to exploit the potential of his brand of dance. His focus is to create works which carry the essence of Minagkabau roots. Mostly self-taught, Mefri’s only training seemed to come from watching his father’s troupe performing the tarian piring (plate dance), pencak silat and perhaps later on, some exposure towards westernized styles of dance when at college.

Based in the Sumatran capital of Padang, the Nan Jombang Dance Company has bravely sought a contemporary language for expressing their region’s traditional ethos and remaining true to the signature motifs of the culture. But in his works, one also glimpses Mefri’s homage to Martha Graham, the Japanese Butoh and especially pencak silat, all yielding a rich physical vocabulary with which is created a soulfulness in the end product.