Aging Sawitri keep on dancing

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Seventy-year-old Sawitri, master Cirebon mask dancer, fielded a spontaneous question from the audience after her performance last Sunday.

"You dance like a volcano in your 70's. What were you like in your 20s?"

Her answer revealed her modest wisdom.

"It's not a matter of age. It's about being taken by the mask. Once I start my dance, I become the character. I look at you all, such a small audience, and feel powerful and gigantic. I surrender to the mask," she said.

Sawitri, who started dancing when she was nine years old, never changes the choreography of the dance. She persistently dances as she was taught by her father.

"I'm not allowed to add or cut even a single movement. If I did, it wouldn't be a Losari mask dance anymore," she said, unveiling her role as a preserver of tradition rather than a creator.

Asked about the possibility of her students creating new choreography, Sawitri said, "As long as they don't claimed it is Losari, it could be done."

Sawitri astonishes audiences with her mastery of her cultural and family inheritance. But it took a long time before she finally found the dance and the dance found her.

For more than a decade she bounced between her personal life and her dancing. She was married six times before she fully realized her life's calling was to preserve the dance tradition.

Soon afterward the world recognized her mastery and she was invited to perform abroad, including in New York.

"Today's generation is weaker," said Sawitri, referring to her students. These include some of her grandchildren who she teaches the art of dancing.

"They don't practice wali fasting like I had to," she said. During this special 40-day fast she was only allowed to eat two bananas a day and drink water. "Their fast only lasts three days."

Unlike Sawitri, who learned the dances by keen observation day by day, her students now write down the steps and movements. "I memorized every movement by watching and listening to the gending (traditional music) while they now follow written instructions," said Sawitri.

In the golden days of her career she shared the stage and fame with her talented older sister, Dewi, who passed away a decade ago. They would dance the parts of more than one character, but now most dancers only perform one character.

Dwindling interest in the dance among young people is partly due to the low frequency of shows compared to the past. In their youth Sawitri and Dewi danced 20-30 times in a month while now she often performs only once every two months.

A living legend, she is indeed. Yet in daily life Sawitri, a heavy chain-smoker, puts aside her glittering reputation and transforms herself into a lovable old woman, an affectionate grandma and a cheerful companion who lights up the conversation with her jokes.

Back in her house in Losari, where everybody knows where she lives, she still trains and tries to survive. "In the past we (she and her group, Purwakencana) went on stage many times a month. We performed at wedding parties or in any local celebration. But now we're very lucky if we get two orders a month," she said. She charges Rp 750,000 for the whole group (about 20 people), if they play in town, or up to Rp 2.5 million if they have to go out of town.

Now she sometimes sells goods to make ends meet as well as passionately teaching students from her own village and even abroad. She was once a visiting lecturer at STSI, a dancing institute in Bandung. "I have stopped teaching there. If you want to learn Losari's mask dance, just come to my place."

-- Helly Minarti