Dance Images in Temples of Mainland Southeast Asia ... - Repository

Central Javanese period (Ibid., 114–115). Her observations also cover more specifi c fi elds of
dance research, such as the role of the costume in the development of dance techniques (Ibid.,
98), whereas some of her observations are more of a sociological or dance-anthropological
nature.
In Indonesia, dance research based on visual and textual sources has been carried out by Edi
Sedyawati. Her works include, among others, analyses of Indian infl uence on ancient Javanese
dance and iconography, as well as on dance historical data available in Old Javanese art-poetry.
She also discusses the different qualities of the portrayals of Indianised court dance scenes
and the depictions of popular performances in the Javanese temple reliefs. She points out that
the court style as “high” and the popular style referred to as “low” could also be interpreted as
having moral connotations, the low style representing “improper” and the high style “proper”
codes of behaviour (Iyer 1998, 67). She has also studied the dramatic principles of Javanese
narrative temple reliefs and discusses the possibility that the drastic change from the clearly
Indian-infl uenced Central Javanese style to that of the East Javanese, so-called wayang style,
happened owing to the infl uence of local conventions of performing arts (Sedyawati 1998, 1–2)
Alessandra Iyer, who has applied the technique of dance iconography in her work, has studied
the 62 dance reliefs in the upper balustrade of the Shiva temple at the ninth-century candi Loro
Jonggaran complex in Central Java (also known as Pramabanan). In her book “Prambanan:
Sculpture and Dance in Ancient Java. A study in Dance Iconography” her main aim is to show
that the dance poses depicted in these reliefs correspond with the karana system defi ned in
the Indian treatise for dance and theatre, the Natyashastra. She discusses the whole topic of
Southeast Asia’s “ Indianisation” in the light of recent research and stresses the probability that
the communication between Southeast Asia and India was not only a “one-way process” (Iyer
1998, 100).
As can be seen from the above, the study of the dance images related to Javanese dance
history is already a well-established discipline. It is natural that in their research of dance and
theatre history in mainland Southeast Asia many scholars have also made references to early
visual evidence. This is understandable, since the early textual sources, other than inscriptions,
are very rare in mainland Southeast Asia. Thus the pictorial evidence is practically the only
available information we have when we discuss the early phase of performing arts in mainland
Southeast Asia.
The dance-historical information given by the bas-reliefs of the Khmer sanctuaries,
Khmer-infl uenced sculptures, and Mon-infl uenced sculptures and reliefs in Thailand have
been analysed, to a certain extent, by Thai theatre historian Mattani Mojdara Rutnin in her
book “Dance, Drama, and Theatre in Thailand” (1993) and in her other writings, in which she
also refers to the interpretations of earlier Thai scholars. To facilitate further study of the dance
images and history of classical Thai dance in general, in 1997 the Thai Fine Arts Department
published a book called “Tamra Ram” containing old, illustrated dance manuals and early series
of dance photographs.
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