RP dance troupe brings fiesta to Jakarta

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): The Araullo University Dance Troupe was the last of the foreign participants in the Jakarta Festival of the Performing Arts, but they almost didn't make it.

On the way from their hometown, Nueva Ecija, to Manila the company was hampered by an accident that occurred on a bridge they had to pass and which took some three hours to clear before they could continue on their way. By then the plane had already left, of course, and after being stranded in Singapore for a night, they finally arrived in Jakarta.

Just as well Gedung Kesenian Jakarta had no other program scheduled for the 29th so the two performances went on as planned. Otherwise we'd have missed a lively fiesta.

One element that stood out from the performance of the troupe was that the dances they performed were not over-choreographed or arranged to an extent that required dancers to follow certain rules. Otherwise that would have turned the presentation into more of a form of artistic movements based on established rhythms rather than an expression of the gamut of emotions through dance.

Example: to learn the waltz as danced at a party, takes, say, half an hour -- alright! two hours, if you happen to have two left feet. But it would take years and years before you'd be considered acceptable to take part in the type of waltz featured in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake or Nutcracker even if your feet are of the correct kind -- right and left.

Of course, for a stage presentation of folk dances, some choreography is in order. However, the emphasis of the troupe's performance was firmly on "fiesta," time to celebrate, time to have fun, time for partying, though some of the programs' items like Canao Festival and the dances from the Muslim people in the south did have ritualistic overtones that called for a modicum of choreography. So did the dance called Kuntao-Silat based on movements of a type of martial arts which has an equivalent in Indonesia. Music for the dances was provided by two guitars and a mandolin, except for the dances from the Muslim people which featured percussion instruments and a different tone structure, i.e. pentatonic scale.

The troupe's performance was also a demonstration of the many elements which both the Philippines and Indonesia share. For instance, some indigenous tribes in Kalimantan also have a dance form in which bamboo poles are used. As for outside influences, the dance kuntao derives from a type of martial arts that hails from China. But it is the Spanish/Portuguese dance rhythms and music that were most prominent in the troupe's presentation.

Take, for instance, the dance called Habanera Botolena. Literally, it means a habanera (the name of the dance -- though habanera could also refer to a dance from Habana, probably identical to Havana in Cuba) from the area of Botolan. Likewise, the Jota Moncadena means a jota from the area of Moncada. You find this type of indicating a dance's (or music's) origins in Spain as well. Terms like sevillana and malaguena refer to dance or music from, respectively, Seville and Malaga.

Similar dance forms have also been accepted in North Sulawesi where the katrili (quadrille) and the lansye (lanciers), along with the waltz, polka and polones (polonaise) have been adopted by the people of the Minahasa. Although these social dances arrived here (and in the Philippines) courtesy of the Iberians, none of them are actually of Spanish/Portuguese origin. The waltz is German/Austrian, the polka comes from Bohemia, the polonaise from Poland, and the quadrille and lanciers hail from France.

Dances for thanksgiving occasions, wedding dances, dances that imitate movements of pomelo leaves, the various ways of wearing a sarong, of scratching away an itch, of cockfighting, and of course the kind you'll find in any culture anywhere in the world: courtship -- including one featuring a man who gets clobbered by the woman he's wooing and the wife he already has.

And of course, the troupe also performed what has become the national dance of the Philippines, the tinikling, in which the dancers hop in between bamboo poles slammed together in ever increasing tempo. A potential bone-crusher is this dance, but seasoned artists that they are, none of the dancers got a foot caught.

What matched the wide variety of dances were the costumes worn by the dancers. These ranged from western type dresses to ethnic outfits. Of the latter, the Canao Festival dances featured native textiles woven according to the ikat technique. At least, that was what it looked like from a distance. Unfortunately, by the time the program had come to an end and we had the chance to chat with the company backstage, most of the outfits had already been packed, so I couldn't get a closer look at the cloth.