What would be debated if Soerjopranoto, Semaoen, Hadji Misbach, Darsono, Sosrokardono, and Agus Salim were to sit together in the same forum? This very question serves as the point of departure for “Vergadering”, a performance that reconstructs the atmosphere of the Sarekat Islam (SI) Congress by re-staging the encounters and ideological tensions among key figures of the movement. The performance presents Soerjopranoto’s address on labor rights and his critique of feudalism, which then becomes the catalyst for heated debates over SI’s political direction, social base, and strategies of struggle.

Grounded in the minutes of the 1918 SI Congress in Surabaya as well as the intellectual and political biographies of each figure, the performance does not merely re-enact a historical event but speculates on the dynamics of ideas that shaped the political landscape of the nationalist movement. In this way, “Vergadering” functions both as a space of historical imagination and as a site of contemporary critique, reviving fundamental questions concerning class, religion, and ideology in the history of modern Indonesia.