Jadugar’s Secret Member

Whenever you talk about The Jadugar, you have to talk about what's inside the minds of Anggun Priyambodo and Betmen. The two offbeat men have created bizarre videos that helped shape the taste of a generation of young Indonesians. Anggun "Culap" Priambodo and Henry "Betmen" Foundation are famous for their take on the "Train Song" video, a wayang collage on Naif's music video, their splash of paint on the Brandals' music video, and also through their interpretation of popular songs such as Peterpan. But what many don't talk about when they mention The Jadugar is the third member of the group.

It's a she, and her name is Nana Suryadi. While Nana wasn't as notorious as Culap and Betmen, there's traces of her in every idea that came out of the group. In fact, she is the backbone of The Jadugar. It's evident by the fact that she pretty much decided how long and far the group would last, because when she left, the group broke up. Now Anggun and Betmen work independently, while Nana disappeared into thin air.

It was a Saturday, seven years since the last time Anggun saw Nana. Since leaving the group, Nana moved around before finally settling in Batam with her husband and daughter. For seven years Nana abandoned the world of contemporary video. She didn't follow Anggun, or Betmen's work, her closest friends during her time at Prambors radio.

Nana and Betmen's love story began when Prambors held an open audition for radio talent at different university campuses. Vincent and Desta were some of the people they chose. One day Desta couldn't make it to the show and was looking for a substitute at the Jakarta Arts Institute . Betmen, a guy from Bogor who's crazy about radio, took the opportunity. There he met Nana, they fell in love with each other. That was how The Jadugar began.

After traveling around Bintaro, Anggun finally arrived at to meet an old man. After knocking on the door, a couple recognized his face and told him to come inside. Nana greeted him. Apparently, she's pregnant and due in two months, she came from Batam to give birth in Jakarta.

They were a little bit awkward at first, like two old friends who haven't talked in a long. But Nana's cheerful nature broke the ice. Her brother and sister in law looked at them with wide eyes and said, "Back in the MTV days, I was a huge fan of Jadugar. When I saw Naif and The Brandals' videos, I was so amazed. The wedding made me realize that my sister in law is The Jadugar!" Apparently, moving hundreds of miles away from Anggun and Betmen didn't make Nana any less Jadugar.

"I never understood what The Jadugar meant as a name, I complained, but it was too late. They already cemented the idea in their heads. They both laughed at how cool the name was. I could only watch them and shake my head," said Nana.

Because she didn't come from the art world, Nana was always was at a safe distance from the creative process of Anggun and Betmen, but She would always allow them indulge their wildest fantasy. Although The Jadugar started working with a major label, Nana took a more central role: the bridge between Jadugar's crazy ideas and the often-conservative demands of the record label. Most of the time, it went well, but there was  a video that failed to ever see the light of day. "We shot with a major band that makes, you know, that kind of music. Anggun's idea was to shoot around Pulau Seribu because of the beautiful view. He didn't know that we needed to ask for permits before the shoot. One of the ideas was to hold a tumpengan [traditional cone shaped rice dish]. We shot all night on a boat because we were waiting for the sunrise, but in the end either the video wasn't to be released or the band didn't break out of the underground scene. I think it's more because the band was tacky," she said while laughing.

With this established dynamic, Nana, Anggun and Betmen started to transform from a collective that made music videos for friends into one of the most reliable music video producers around. Nana's had a dream she was trying to realize with Jadugar. She imagined one day The Jadugar could be a more serious production house, "I started to see how Betmen and Anggun's ideas could manifest as advertising, it was one of my personal ambitions. I thought of resigning from my job because I felt I needed to devote more time to Jadugar, I worked Monday to Friday and weekends we shot videos from five in the morning. But when I spoke to Anggun about my idea, he said he would feel guilty if I quit my job, so I reconsidered."

Unfortunately, Nana's ideas faded away before they could be realized. Not long after, The Jadugar was gone too. After Nana decided not to resign from her daily job, she broke up with Betmen, from then on everything was different. She admitted she could no longer talk with Betmen, and Anggun became her point person. Now, they can laugh while looking back on it, "Back then we accepted a lot of offers to make videos, but our communication with Betmen and Anggun was different. I couldn't talk to Betmen, but to Anggun I complained endlessly. Poor Anggun, he became an emotional barrier," she said laughing.

While Nana and Anggun talked, Nana's mother excused herself. She was old but her eyes were able to see the special connection Nana had with Anggun. Before leaving, her Nana's mother said, "There's still a lot of Jadugar storyboards, I wanted to throw them away but Nana never let me." Anggun stared. He then looked for confirmation from Nana by saying, "Wait, we have storyboards?" Nana said, half-angry, "See? They never wanted to know about documents. It's always my job to deal with paperwork while they made the designs."

This meeting between old friends ended in the late afternoon. On his way home, Anggun enthusiastically said how Nana always brought fresh perspectives to the their ideas, and even though Betmen wasn't there, he would agree with Anggun. Nana asked Anggun to send her photos of when they were still The Jadugar. Even after all these years she felt like she had new ideas springing up inside of her and almost completely forgot that she was to give birth in a few weeks.

This is an advanced excerpt from The Jadugar Book. It includes commentary from those connected in the music scene like Cholil from Efek Rumah Kaca and Marcel Thee to help interpret The Jadugar's legacy. Along with the book, they will also release never-before-published archives by the video collective.