Atilah Soeryadjaya

One year later, in 2013, Soeryadjaja’s colossal play be staged at the Monumen Nasional, just in time to celebrate Jakarta’s 486th anniversary. The play, titled Ariah, was not planned to be her second production after the successful epic Javanese play Matah Ati. Ariah will involve at least 300 dancers and musicians, performing on a 3,456-square-meter-wide stage comprising three different heights of 3, 7 and 10 meters. A total of 15,000 spectators are expected for the show, set to be performed from June 28 to June 30.

When she read a Singapore news story that dubbed her ancestral home, Solo, as a paradise for Islamic terrorism. Surakarta, after terrorist leader Noordin Mohammad Top had been killed in his hiding place in the city in 2009, Soeryadjaya determined to restore her hometown's image. She then decided to stage a Javanese sendratari drama Matah Ati show it to the rest of the world as the true image of Solo and to hold the play in Singapore, where it could attract more of a global audience. Matah Ati was staged in the Esplanade, Singapore concert hall from 22 to 23 October 2010, and was successful in Singapore.

In 1998, she married her second husband, business tycoon Edward Soeryadjaya, son of William Soeryadjaya and later helped with his business.

However, as a teenager, she took an interest in modern modeling, singing, and dancing, and decided to pursue language and contemporary arts in Germany after graduating from high school. She ended up in a music company, touring for years in Europe in 1980, while still studying music and contemporary dance.

Atilah Soeryadjaya (Bandoro Raden Ayu (BRAy) Atilah Rapatriati, born 28 April 1961) is an Indonesian theatre producer, director, dancer, businesswoman, and socialite whose career spanned since 2010. She is the Javanese noblewoman through her grandfather, a Surakarta-based Javanese king, Mangkunegara VII. She is married to the business tycoon, Edward Soeryadjaya, son of the founder of Astra International, William Soeryadjaya.

Ariah is based on the legendary tale of Ariah, a Betawi (native Jakartan) female warrior who stepped up against her Dutch oppressors and led fellow farmers in a violent revolt against the colonialists in 1869, when Jakarta was still known as Batavia. The plot of the musical is also inspired by the historic rivalry between the notorious playboy Oey Tamba Sia (1827-1856) and Tan Eng Goan, first Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia (1802-1872), as well as the latter's son-in-law, Lim Soe Keng Sia.