Hello all!

My name is Ari - I'm an artist based between Indonesia (Bali/Jogja) and USA (Seattle/San Francisco), working primarily as an art director for dance and physical theater, and as a creator of visual art and photography projects. For the last couple years I've been working on a dance-theater project around prehistoric animals.. tell you all about it when we meet :D

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the US, but have lived a lot of my life in Asia, and for the last six years have been mostly based in Indonesia.. at this point I feel more at home in Asia than the US honestly. I am quite adaptable, and love allowing myself to blend and connect with people from other cultural backgrounds. And Indonesia has been a wild, beautiful ride that I feel blessed to be on.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I haven't used couchsurfing a ton yet, although I've had this account for a long time. But I'm no stranger to hosting and being hosted while traveling! During the last six years in Indonesia, I always have someone staying with me, and when I travel through the archipelago I am always staying with friends of friends of friends. Here the interconnected links between people are so rich.. so anyway, the same kinda situation unfolded oldskool style without a website. But I think the concept of CS is totally awesome, and I've loved the experiences I've had so far. Basic human trust and new friendships, yas please.

Interests

Biology, and paleontology / evolution are super big interests of mine. And astronomy. Science is awesome.. because the universe is awesome.

Research on global dance and music traditions, and trance states (and how they all intersect)

My own work as a performance maker.. I've also tried my hand at directing experimental film and photography.

I do a lot of digital design and art with Adobe and my trusty Wacom..

I spin fire too, when the mood is calling for it :D

Love to learn new languages. I speak Bahasa Indonesia pretty fluently now, and also have began learning some other archipelago languages including Javanese and Osing. I also lived for 1 1/2 years in China when I was younger, and used to speak Mandarin Chinese, but now its extremely rusty. I find it endlessly fascinating how ideas and experience are communicated differently by different languages.

• arts
• culture
• performing arts
• sketching
• festivals
• dancing
• meditation
• painting
• drawing
• music
• swimming
• ecology
• mountains
• nature
• dance
• friendship
• contemporary dance
• indonesia
• butoh
• massage exchange
• nature conservation

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: I used to read like crazy before the screen took over.. I was a philosophy undergrad and stockpilled a library. These days I'm mostly reading science books / papers. One book that rocked my world was "Your Inner Fish: the 3.5 billion year history of the human body" by paleontologist Neil Shubin.

Movies: Major movie fan.. I grew up on sci-fi and fantasy, and I gotta say thats still where I'm at most of the time. Some favorites are Cloud Atlas, Mad Max Fury Road, Dance of Reality, The Pillow Book, Children of Men

Shows: My biggest inspirations are the Japanese butoh dance companies, Dairakudakan, Sankai Juku, Byakko-Sha. I watch a lot of traditional Indonesian and other Southeast Asian dance..

Oh TV? Haha.. well, Westworld, American Gods, Stranger Things. And I LOVE David Attenborough wildlife documentaries and science docos in general ~ anything well done on evolution and prehistoric creatures.

Music: If on my own, typically traditional and folk music from around the world and textural noise (finding atmospheres and worlds) But if out dancing, love glitch, hip-hop, tribal, deep house, whatever makes me move. Guilty pleasure for certain Indonesian pop music. Bjork will always be close to my heart

Food: Indonesian!!! Especially Balinese... also love Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Moroccan..

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I got to dig up the jawbone and a bunch of ribs of a T. Rex in 2017. It was a spiritual experience, no lie.

Teach, Learn, Share

Dance moves? Sure. Indonesian language, drawing/sketching, nerd out on science, sharing stories. Wanna learn some fire poi? If customs didn't steal em from me :D

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, China, Indonesia, United Kingdom, United States