Yogyakarta's court dance goes public<\/p>\n
By Y. Bintang Prakarsa<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Do you consider Javanese dancing to be long,
\nuneventful and boring enough to fall asleep over? Seeing the
\nlively Lawung or blunt lance dance from the court of Yogyakarta
\nmight change your mind.<\/p>\n
Compared to the Surakarta court, its past rival, the
\nYogyakarta style is often described as less delicate, less
\npolished, more straightforward, strong and masculine. This
\napparently has much to do with the heritage of its first ruler,
\nHamengkubuwono I, who reigned from 1755 to 1792. Independent as
\nwell as frugal, the astute military commander was once described
\nas \"the most able ruler from the Mataram royal family since
\nSultan Agung\" by historian M. C. Ricklefs.<\/p>\n
While he was Prince Mangkubumi of the Mataram court of
\nSurakarta, he was asked by the king, Susuhunan Pakubuwono II, to
\nsubdue rebellions in the kingdom. After he succeeded, however, he
\nwas denied his reward of a promised land grant. Having decided to
\ntake arms, he conducted campaigns against the joint forces of the
\nweak Pakubuwono II and later his son Pakubuwono III, who were
\nbacked by the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC). After 11 years of
\nprotracted warfare, Mangkubumi made the VOC sign a treaty that
\nseceded half of the Mataram kingdom to him without consulting
\nPakubuwono III, and became the first ruler of Yogyakarta as
\nHamengkubuwono I.<\/p>\n
Ever since the breakup, the two courts cultivated distinctive,
\noften conflicting, cultural styles, a strategy to present each
\ncourt as the one and only legitimate power whose regalia, sacred
\nheirlooms, army, ceremonies and arts could not be duplicated.<\/p>\n
The Lawung cycle, particularly the part called Lawung Gagah
\n(the masculine Lawung), is interesting in this respect. In this
\nsubdivision, 16 male dancers move energetically with their spread
\nlimbs, depicting the field exercise of two groups of mounted
\nlancers.<\/p>\n
Using a three-meter-long blunt lawung (lance), each group
\ntries to overpower its opponent, first by elaborate muscle-
\nflexing and shouting and then by mock-fighting. Choreographed by
\nHamengkubuwono I, the warrior spirit is incarnated into a
\nvigorous dance which is accompanied by perhaps the most glorious
\ngamelan music ever composed.<\/p>\n
Created by the kingdom's founder, Lawung has an honorable
\nstatus, which is rather anomalous from the accepted Javanese
\npreference for civility, restraint, understatement and serenity,
\nrepresented by the word alus. Still performed during royal
\nweddings accompanying the sacred Bedhaya, in the past it is
\nperformed outside the court as a symbolic presence of the Sultan.<\/p>\n
The dance is opened by a fast and heavily accented chant by a
\nmale chorus, followed by piercing instrumental music with the
\nloud instruments of the gamelan, brass, snare drums and bedhug (a
\nlarge low-pitched drum hung lengthwise on a wooden frame), which
\nintroduces the dancers. They appear in two groups that occupy the
\nright and the left side of the stage, and each has two lance
\ncarriers, two soldiers, two officers and a baton-waving
\ngeneral accompanied by a page dressed like a clown.<\/p>\n
The main characters are the jajars (soldiers) and lurahs
\n(officers), appearing in turn in the foreground to practice with
\nthe lances, while the generals bark orders from the background
\nand bet with one another over the results of the mock fighting.<\/p>\n
The more expressive jajars fight first. Long-haired with faces
\npainted red, they move ferociously and extravagantly, using kasar
\n(coarse) gestures identified with demonic giants (butas). The
\nlurahs move with more dignified gestures of the alus (smooth,
\ncomposed, refined, fine-tuned) and satriya (righteous noble
\nwarriors).<\/p>\n
When the fight culminates in the frontal clash of lances of
\nthe lurahs, the music becomes even louder and the tempo brisker,
\nreaching an overwhelming peak of expression unknown in other
\ngamelan repertoires.<\/p>\n
Intensifying the drama is the chest-pounding bass of the low-
\npitched bedhug. Its occasional off-beat booms now thunder
\nrelentlessly in three beats against the two-beat pulse of the
\nwhole orchestra, suggesting the disorder and fierceness of the
\nmock battle. Shortly after, the exercise ends and the gamelan
\nrecedes almost suddenly, switching to soft singing and music to
\naccompany the peaceful exit of the dancers.<\/p>\n
Another intriguing cultural aspect is the dance's
\nmulticultural elements. The most ancient is the Islamic bedhug,
\nintroduced to central Javanese courts possibly in the sixteenth
\ncentury. Then there is the language used by the dancers. It is
\nnot Javanese but it can be understood in fragments with probably
\nBuginese, Madurese, Malay, or the Javanese dialect of Banyumas
\ncomposing it.<\/p>\n
They are traces of the polyglot mercenaries that once were
\nemployed by the court and were given living quarters in the
\ncapital, which were named after their place of origin. The
\nneighborhood of Bugisan still exists in Yogyakarta today.<\/p>\n
Last come the western snare drums and brass, introduced to the
\nregion during the reign of Hamengkubuwono VIII from 1921 to 1939.
\nLawung is not only an art worth seeing more than once. It is an
\nhistorical document that provides a clue for past cultural
\nprocesses that develop and enrich the Yogyakarta court tradition.<\/p>",
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