Youth theatre festival and the revival of Sundanese language in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia

This article examines how two regional youth theatre festivals in Bandung, West Java the Festival Drama Basa Sunda (FDBS) and the Festival Longser (FesLong), function as sites of Sundanese language reawakening, transmission, and youth cultural agency. Drawing on qualitative ethnographic case study research conducted across both festivals in 2023, and analyzed through the Circuit of Culture framework, the article argues that theatre festival practice constitutes a distinctive and under-theorized mechanism for language revitalization. One that operates through aesthetic compulsion, embodied language learning, peer validation, and intergenerational mentorship, not through formal instruction. The article contributes to scholarship on applied theatre, youth cultural work, and language revitalization. It concerns the reawakening, rather than the mere preservation, of traditional and Indigenous languages through youth performance practice.