ACEH BEGINS INVENTORIZING ITS TRADITIONAL ARTS

Banda Aceh, Sept 2 (ANTARA) - Aceh province's culture and tourism office has begun to inventorize the region's traditional arts as a precaution against cultural theft by other countries.

"We are making an inventory on all traditional arts and will publicize it soon," the chief of Aceh's culture and tourism Office, Mirzan Fuadi, said here on Wednesday.

The initiative was based based on an instruction from Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf to register every traditional art in Aceh that needs to be patented or protected.

When the traditional arts had been registered with the proper institution, other countries could not claim them as being theirs as Malaysia had tried to do in the case of Bali's Pendet dance recently.

Earlier, Governor Yusuf had stated to be prioritized in the inventory would be nearly extinct traditional arts. He noted some of Aceh's traditional arts such as dances had started to lose their original characteristics due to modifications inspired by modern dances.

Aceh's traditional arts could also disappear after they got mixed with another country's.

Bilateral relation between Indonesia and Malaysia became strained again this year due to a televised tourism advertisement in a "Visit Malaysia Year" program which showed girls performing the Balinese 'Pendet' dance.

Protests were staged across Indonesia because the advertisement made it appear as if the pendet dance was part of Malaysia's indigenous culture.

In the meantime, the Malaysian side was reported to have said that the Balinese pendet dance in the advertisement was not made by a Malaysian government body but by the Discovery Channel as part of a program titled "Enigmatic Malaysia".

"In our meeting with the Malaysian side, they explained that the ad was produced by the Malaysian government," Indonesian Tourism and Culture Minister Jero Wacik said.

The Malaysian government, Jero said, promised to reprimand the Singapore-based production house which had produced the pendet dance advertisement.

Previously, Malaysia had also claimed such Javanese cultural products as batik and the reog ponorogo as being part of its own heritage.