Help Prehistoric Body Theater Complete Our 2025 Summer U.S. Tour!

Prehistoric Body Theater is on our first-ever U.S. tour from Indonesia, bringing our deep-time animal dance performances to stages, fossil fields, and outdoor festivals across the country. After powerful showings opening the historic Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and at Asia Society’s Wallace Theater in New York City, we continued our journey to dig up dinosaurs in Montana’s Hell Creek fossil beds with the University of Washington and Burke Museum science team throughout July.  We finally showed our Homo erectus performance and taught intensive workshops for the Salish Sea Butoh Festival in Port Townsend, WA.  And now we have some very exciting prospects for coming back to the US in a big way next year!  

While we were in Montana, we received devastating news: crucial expected funding from the Indonesian government had fallen through, due to complications with the timing of the grant’s launch (see below for an official letter of clarification from the Indonesian Consul General).

We are now urgently raising $6,000 to support the remainder of the tour—covering housing, food, transportation, and stipends for our artists continuing through September. Your support at this moment will allow this absolutely unique project—bringing Indonesian artists to the U.S. for a deep weaving of cultures and perspectives through the portal of our shared deep-time ancestry—to fully blossom while we are already here, with legal working artist visas in hand!

A Historic First Tour

Follow our tour media posts at https://www.instagram.com/prehistoricbody/

This summer marks Prehistoric Body Theater’s debut tour in the United States, a milestone we’ve worked toward for over the last eight years. Our team of eight artists—seven of them Indonesian citizens, six of whom had never before left their home country—successfully navigated the complex U.S. visa process and entered the country on P-3 working visas for culturally unique performing artists.

We launched the tour in June with performances of our newest work, Ghosts of Hell Creek: stone garuda, at two major institutions:

• Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (June 24–25) in Massachusetts

• Asia Society Museum (June 28–29) in New York City

We were met with standing ovations, full houses, and the rare opportunity to perform for both U.S. arts leaders and representatives of the Indonesian government.  Read media reviews of our 2025 shows: Splash Magazine, Art Review Magazine, The Berkshire Eagle, BTW Berkshires Magazine, 

Our Indonesian team comes from rural, traditional artistic backgrounds, and rarely have access to opportunities like this. The chance to share their work on an international stage, build lasting collaborations, and deepen cultural exchange is a rare and powerful experience—for them and for the communities we meet along the way.

After our NYC performances, four members of our team returned home to Indonesia, while the remaining four most senior members—Ari Dharminalan Rudenko, Sofyan Joyo Utomo, Boy Mahmudi, and Alan Ilun—continue on for a two-month residency and performance tour through Montana and Colorado before returning to Washington State for our final residency and shows.  

Paleontology research in Hell Creek, Montana

For the full month of July 2025, we have been in residence at the Hell Creek Project fossil research in rural Montana, working directly with paleontologists from the University of Washington and the Burke Museum.  Here we helped excavate Triceratops and T. rex fossils in the very landscape that inspired Ghosts of Hell Creek, getting a crash course in the scientific method and building strength behind our position as ambassadors on the bridge between science and culture.  

August 2025: A Song for Sangiran 17

In August, we begin touring a second production, A Song for Sangiran 17, expanding on the Homo erectus character introduced in Stone Garuda. This new work explores the dawn of humanity - pre-verbal communication around the earliest hearth fires, surviving the long dark night until the dawn breaks.  Please come see the work!  

Our upcoming appearances (exact performance time and date details to be revealed soon) include:

• Crestone, Colorado — August 4–8

• Salish Sea Butoh Festival, Port Townsend, Washington — August 16–24 

The Indonesian artists will say goodbye to the US for this year, and return to Solo, Central Java, on September 9.

Why We’re Fundraising

We had planned to fund this second phase of the tour through a grant from the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (Dana Indonesiana). However, that grant was denied due to timing conflicts that were unclear when the funding was launched, and we received official denial after we had already landed in the U.S. and begun the tour.

Now, we are facing an urgent gap in support and seeking to raise $6,000 to cover:

• Housing, food, and ground transportation through September

• Residency and production expenses for A Song for Sangiran 17

• Modest stipends and honoraria so the artists can return home with dignity after three months of unpaid international work

We’re not asking for luxury—just the essentials to finish this ambitious, once-in-a-lifetime tour with integrity and care.

Here is a letter from the Indonesian Consul General in New York City, explaining what happened with the Indonesian government funding:

How You Can Help

If you believe in what we’re doing—if you’ve seen and support our work, support global cultural exchange, or value the intersections of science and performance—please consider helping us:

• Donate here on Givebutter

• Share this campaign with your networks and communities

• For tax-deductible donations, contribute through our fiscal sponsor: Producer Hub

• For direct support, you can also use Zelle: [email protected]

• For cryptocurrency-based donation options, please get in contact with us at [email protected] 

Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for believing in this journey.
With gratitude and respect,
The Prehistoric Body Theater team