Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

54 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYless appreciated in the metropolitan context, wheremany different cultural identities coexist.About 40 years have passed since the beginning ofthe PKJT, and about 25 years since the death ofHumardani, but it seems that no remarkable changesor innovations have occurred in Surakarta regardingJavanese traditional dance. 7 This is, in my opinion,mostly because practitioners have missed the startingpoint/origin of Javanese traditional dance, which wouldconfirm their cultural identity in this modern era ofglobalization. My guess is also supported by the factthat Sardono W. Kusumo and Sal Murgiyanto haveadvocated seeking their own “cultural roots” as theguiding principle of the Graduate School of the STSISurakarta (Tomioka 2005b) that was established in2000.Many elements transformed by the PKJT project thatare essential to Javanese court dance have the potentialto acquire new meaning in contemporary social andcultural contexts.Circle of time and contraction of timeHere I have to add an explanation on the traditionalcustoms of the court dances before the 1970s. In theirfull versions, srimpi and bedhaya performances last fromforty to sixty minutes for the dance proper, with fiveto seven minutes for each entrance and exit. About anhour-long performance of a certain dance or musicalcomposition was quite normal in the former days;for example, Sardono W. Kusumo performed a fiftyfiveminute court dance in the 1950s (Kusumo 2002,103).Javanese traditional dance has a circular structure, andthe dance is launched and ended by a mangenjali (prayerwith palms joined together) movement with the dancerssitting on the floor. Dance movements, formationsand music structures are related to one another. Onemusical structure is repeated a certain number of timesand then followed by another musical structure. Asthe music goes on, various kinds of movements arerepeated and developed in symmetrical formations,through which harmony or balance and a meditativeatmosphere are gradually generated. The dance makestime feel luxurious as performers as well as members ofthe audience become enraptured by it.Moreover, in Javanese courts where alus (elegant)behavior is highly appreciated, fast tempos and dynamicor drastic changes in the tempo are regarded as kasar(rough), and an artificial/unnatural movement is notappreciated. According to Bambang Busur, the phrasekembang tiba (flowers falling down to the earth) refersto the movements in Javanese dance. The term meansdancers have their own timing of movement like theflowers of a tree that fall down to the earth one byone, whereas the synchronized movements of dancersare compared to the flowers falling down all at once(Tomioka 2005a). In this way, Javanese court dance hasa circle of time in which the changes progress graduallyfor a certain length of time until the dance returns tothe beginning.To contract the full version into one fourth or one halfis, in other words, to reduce the number of repetitionsor circles, and economizes on the amount of timetraditionally used. Humardani also transformed thequality of time. Dance criticism by Humardani onballet (Humardani 1961) shows how he was movedby the Western performing arts, in which time flowsstraight to the climax. A linear flow of time is generatedby fast and dynamic changes of tempo, synchronizedmovements of corp de ballet and formations appropriatedfor proscenium theaters (Tomioka 2005a). All theseelements make visible changes. If movements aresynchronized among the dancers, changing fromone movement to another is more visible than themovements of kembang tiba. If the formations are alwayssymmetrical and balanced among all the dancers, thereseem to be no visible changes at a glance.Humardani introduced the concept of a linear flow oftime to Javanese court dance. All things considered, heintended to make Javanese court dance fully attractiveto an audience that liked the stage or show performancesof Western countries (Tomioka 2005b), and thatcontraction of time was the doorway to realizing thisintention.Here in my project, I wanted to revalue the essentialelements of Javanese court dance by representing courtdance performances in their full version, from whichIndonesian artists will be able to revive their historicalmemory, restore the wholeness of their experience, andrevalue their own cultural identity.MethodologyIn this project, I made a music recording (CD) and adocumentary video (VCD/DVD) of live performancesof “Srimpi Gondokusumo” and “Bedhaya Pangkur” withthe performances having the following elements: (1)they show the full version of the dances; (2) they areperformed in the classical tempo; and (3) they maintaineach dancer’s wiletan (individual style). These mediaAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows