For Linda Mayasari from Indonesian Dance Festival (IDF), attending the Edinburgh International Performing Arts Delegation (IPAD) 2025 in Edinburgh was not simply about watching performances. It was about stepping into a city that temporarily transforms into a living, breathing ecosystem of art where theatres, streets, and conversations merge into a continuous flow of exchange.
For a week, Edinburgh offered a glimpse of new ways of seeing how artistic work is not only presented, but also supported, circulated, and sustained through networks of institutions, communities, and individuals in a performing arts festival.
She felt that moving through the festival often felt like being carried by a strong current. With hundreds of performances happening simultaneously, there was a constant sense of urgency of needing to choose, to move, and to catch the next show. Yet within that intensity, there were also quieter moments: conversations after performances, informal exchanges between delegates, and reflections that lingered long after leaving the venue.
Festivals as living ecosystems
One of the most striking realisations from IPAD 2025, according to Linda, is how festivals function far beyond presentation platforms. They operate as ecosystems—bringing together artists, programmers, producers, and audiences in ways that generate not only visibility, but also dialogue and long-term relationships.
Behind what appears seamless on the surface lies a complex structure of coordination, trust, and shared vision. Festivals like those in Edinburgh are not built overnight. They are the result of sustained collaboration between cultural institutions, local governments, venues, and creative communities.
This ecosystem approach offers an important reflection for contexts like Indonesia. The question is no longer just how to create more performances, but how to build environments where those performances can exist, grow, and connect with wider communities.
Between urgency and care
Across many of the works encountered during IPAD, Linda sensed a recurring tension emerged between the urgency of production and the need for care.
Post-pandemic realities have reshaped how performances are made. Shorter timelines, limited funding, and increasing pressure to remain visible have pushed artists and organisations into faster modes of production. Yet, many of the works presented in Edinburgh resisted this acceleration. Instead, they proposed slowness.
Some performances centred on intergenerational dialogue, placing older people and lived experience at the heart of the work. Others explored intimacy breaking down the distance between performer and audience, inviting participation, and creating shared spaces of vulnerability.
In these moments, she perceived that performance became less about spectacle and more about presence. About listening, responding, and allowing time for connection to unfold.
New ways of listening
Another key insight from the programme was a shift in how audiences are invited to engage with performance.
Rather than maintaining a fixed boundary between stage and spectator, Linda saw that many works experimented with proximity. Audiences were asked not only to watch, but to feel, to move, and to become part of the experience itself.
This shift challenges traditional hierarchies in performance. It suggests that meaning is not delivered, but co-created through interaction, attention, and shared space.
For Indonesian contexts, this opens up interesting possibilities. There is already a strong foundation of communal and participatory practices within traditional performance forms. The question becomes how these values can be reactivated within contemporary frameworks, without losing their depth or specificity.