Lifting the mask on Indramayu dance legend

By YR Prahista

BANDUNG (JP): It is rare for people to fiercely defend their principles, especially when it is not financially rewarding. But Rasinah, one of the oldest mask dancers in Indramayu, West Java, counts among the exceptions.

"I will keep on dancing until I no longer have the power to move," the 68-year-old said from her house in Pekandangan village in Indramayu Kota district.

Rasinah considers dancing her "second soul". It gives her the strength to renew her spirit, visible from her powerful and energetic movements on stage despite her age. She can dance or talk about her love for it for hours, and her home is always open to visitors.

The twice-married mother of four has dedicated most of her life to the mask dance. She learned dancing from her father, Lastra, a famous narrator of mask dances in Indramayu, when she was nine.

By the age of 12, Rasinah was already a member of a mask dancing troupe and often toured other regions.

Indramayu's mask dance is not as well known as its counterpart from Cirebon, a town 50 kilometers east.

The mask dance is the most popular form of folk theater. The sequence of its acts philosophically reflects the human journey. It begins with panji, followed by samba, rumyang, patih/tumenggung and kelana.

The panji dance symbolizes birth, the time of innocence. The samba depicts the glitter of world materialism, especially wealth. Rumyang represents devotion to God and patih is a depiction of somebody's discipline with movements symbolizing heroism. Kelana describes greed.

Rasinah said the latter consists of two parts; kelana gandrung is a love story, and kelana udeng is about joy in which all dancers wear headbands.

When Lastra was a leading mask dancer, there was another act called topeng ayun-ayunan, with movements like someone rocking in a cradle.

Compared to its Cirebon cousin, the Indramayu style is more energetic and egalitarian, probably because it was created and developed by common people.

Unlike Cirebon, which has a number of royal households, Indramayu never had a kingdom to patronize its culture.

It is difficult to imagine how Rasinah has been able to devote almost half a century to the art, almost three quarters of her life. She asserted that dance brought her untold spiritual happiness instead of material gains.

Rasinah has contributed considerably to the art.

After her preteen grounding in dance, she moved to neighboring Subang where she sharpened her skills. It was here that she lost her father, shot dead in a clash between independence fighters and Dutch occupation troops in the late 40s.

She did not give up. She joined the mask dance group led by her mother. Her schedule was so busy she hardly had time for her family after she married a Sundanese puppeteer. She recalled she would perform up to 15 times a month during her heyday.

Rasinah acknowledged her busy schedule and her time away from her children led to two of their deaths. Several years later, her husband died and her mother died not long afterward. She returned to Indramayu where she joined artist Sarja from Kemped, Karangsinom, near Indramayu, for about three years.

After settling in her hometown, she vowed she would not remarry unless her suitor was an artist. She believed she would be "finished" if she married a man from another profession.

Her wish came true. She was courted by an artist, Amad, and she readily accepted his proposal.

Rasinah is well aware that it is getting difficult to solely rely on the stage to survive because the traditional art she loves is losing its popularity in the face of modern performing arts. More and more folk artists have quit the stage.

Fortunately, over the past 10 years, she no longer has to rely on the art for her living. In 1985, Rasinah and Amad were assigned to teach traditional art at several schools in Indramayu. With no formal education, she is categorized as a contract worker and she is not entitled to a pension. She receives the pension of her late husband, a low ranking civil servant.

Although she is illiterate, Rasinah has created no less than 10 dances, including Jayengrana, Gatotkaca, Dipati Ukur, Raden Rodea,Raden Samba and Jakasona.

And despite her old age, Rasinah does not look frail, evident in her last performance at Jakarta's Ismail Marzuki Arts Center in 1993. She is so proud of the show that she keeps one of its program's fixed on the front wall of her modest house.

"I want to dance again," she said softly.

Befitting her position in the traditional dance, Rasinah is a figure of discussion among researchers of the Indonesian Dance Academy in Bandung and the Indonesian Performing Arts Community, as well as dance researchers from India, Holland and Japan.

Rasinah hopes her nine-year-old granddaughter, Erlin, will succeed her as the guardian of Indramayu mask dance.

She once placed all her hopes on her only daughter. She was not as dedicated as her mother, giving up the art when she married a farmer.