Putu Arista Dewi

Putu Arista Dewi, who was born in 1995, is a dancer and choreographer from Jembrana, Bali, who currently lives in Yogyakarta. In the last two years, Arista has collaborated extensively with fellow artists across disciplines, including theatre, music and visual art. Together with several young artists from Jembrana, Arista co-founded the Jelana Creative Movement, an interdisciplinary art collective based in Jembrana. Arista's artistic practice revolves around the body and Balinese women, seen from everyday activities, as an interesting text to study further. For Arista, dance is closely related to the daily body practices, and the body has a fascinating history and narrative to explore in depth. She believes that digging into the history of the body is as imperative as digging up narratives in archives of written texts. Currently Arista is researching the biography of her mother who worked as a coconut palm picker in the context of Balinese women's archival repertoire.