Banyuwangi residents turn tables on story mocking their traditions
Banyuwangi residents turn tables on story mocking their traditions
By Antariksawan Jusuf
JAKARTA (JP): A female dancer, donning a reddish sarong with a
typical golden Balinese batik pattern, opens the traditional
opera. Other dancers, clad in multiple layers of clothing, remind
the audience of Drama Gong opera dancers of Bali. The
accompanying musical instruments are part of a Balinese gamelan
orchestra which plays a Balinese tune. The characters of the
opera speak in an upper-Javanese dialect. In between acts, they
sing popular songs in Using, the language of the Banyuwangi who
live in the easternmost part of Java. Is this a multiregional
folk art performance?
Welcome to the world of Banyuwangi traditional opera called
Damarwulan. The name was derived from a fictitious character that
played an important role in the story of the opera. In the
original story, written by a man from Surakarta in the 1700s,
Damarwulan managed to end the supremacy of Menak Jinggo, the
mighty king of Banyuwangi, which was then called the Blambangan
kingdom, by beheading him. The accomplice of the murder was Menak
Jinggo's wife who helped provide Damarwulan with Menak Jinggo's
powerful arm, The Yellow Bludgeon. The story has it that Menak
Jinggo was immortal unless he was killed with his own bludgeon.
During a recent performance at the East Java pavilion in Taman
Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII), the opera portrayed the story of
Wong Agung Wilis, a hero of Blambangan. The performance of the
troupe was presented by Banyuwangi's tourism department in
cooperation with the region's Ministry of National Education.
Damarwulan has been one of the most popular aspects of folk
art in Banyuwangi besides the Gandrung erotic dance, angklung
(bamboo instrument), barong mask dance and the patrol or hadrah
kuntulan. Since it came into existence in the 1920s, it has been
a subject of controversy. It was to blame for causing the
disappearance of a similar folk art performance called Ande-ande
Lumut.
Written from a viewpoint of a non-Blambangan resident, its
storyline cast the Blambangan kingdom as a renegade region which
lost the battle against the more powerful Majapahit kingdom.
Menak Jinggo was also depicted as having a humiliating physical
appearance of a dog-like face, fangs and a limp.
Although most people believe that the Balinese influence
dated back to the early 1700s during the occupation of the
Balinese kingdom of Mengwi in Blambangan, Damarwulan was purely a
product of creativity of adaptation, according to historian and
Banyuwangi expert Hasan Ali.
Ali said a proponent of Damarwulan was the late Darji, the
grandfather of B.S Nurdian, one of the outstanding song composers
of the contemporary Banyuwangi songs. Darji, a leader of an Ande-
ande Lumut traditional troupe, was also a cattle trader who often
visited Bali, which was a source of abundant half-wild cows.
"This is how Damarwulan got the Balinese influence," said Ali,
who has been the chairman of the Blambangan Art Council for 20
years.
Damarwulan opera took its dramatic change in the depiction of
king Menak Jinggo in mid-1970 when the Banyuwangi realized that
the Damarwulan story was an insult to them. "It was such an irony
that the Banyuwangi people loved the insulting story," Ali said.
So Menak Jinggo has now turned into the handsome, powerful and
undefeated king of Blambangan. And he vanished before Damarwulan,
who stole Menak Jinggo's bludgeon, could kill him.
"The story of Damarwulan is a fictitious romance picking up
several real characters such as Bhra Wirabhumi and Ronggolawe.
But most of the characters are fictional, like Damarwulan,
Kencono Wungu and Aryo Logender. These names are not mentioned
whatsoever in history," Ali said.
"It is a fictional piece and we counterattack with more
fiction," said Ali.