Sacred dance 'Bedhaya' to be recreated

Sacred dance 'Bedhaya' to be recreated

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

The smell of burning incense fills the room. It is illuminated by
a dozen or so torches. The ambience is perfect for the sacred
pre-Bedhaya ritual.

With various kinds of delectable dishes including a whole
cooked chicken ingkung, cone-shaped rice tumpeng with a variety
of side dishes, a set of jajan pasar (traditional snacks) and
fresh fruit in the middle of it all, the setting is perfect.

Sitting crossed-legged in a line behind the scrumptious spread
are nine young female dancers and two middle-aged female dance
instructors. Sitting in the same position just in front of them
is an elderly man dressed to the nines in classic Javanese
traditional accoutrements: a surjan shirt, batik cloth,
traditional headdress blangkon and a kris on his back.

The man finally breaks the silence with a Javanese song
macapatan followed by a prayer in the refined royal Javanese
language -- a mix of ancient Javanese and Sanskrit. It is
completed with prayers, and he then invites the dance instructors
to begin training the dancers in the sacred dance Bedhaya, or the
Bedhaya Jendral Sri Kanawa.

That is how the Yogyakarta-based Siswo Among Beksa Javanese
classic dance school held a special ritual recently to ask for
God's blessings, or sugengan, to mark the official start of the
process of re-creating the sacred dance.

"Sugengan is required before creating or performing a dance as
sacred as the Bedhaya. "Otherwise, something unpleasant might
happen during the exercise or the dance performance," Wibatsu
Harianto, the man who led the sugengan ritual, said.

According to Wibastu, who is also the school headmaster, there
were examples of unpleasant things occurring due to an incomplete
ritual or offering related to the sacred Bedhaya.

A gamelan player, he remembers, once fainted while playing a
sacred song used to accompany Bedhaya Semang dance of Yogyakarta
Palace because he did not present an offering before playing.

"At that time, he didn't present any offerings because he
thought he would just try the song as part of some research on
the sacred dance," said Wibatsu, adding that the gamelan player
he referred to was very healthy at the time.

The ritual to ask God's blessings, according to Wibatsu, was
even required not only when a Bedhaya dance was about to be
performed but also every time it was rehearsed, especially if it
regarded a dance as sacred as the Bedhaya Semang.

"Among the existing Bedhaya dances, Bedhaya Semang is the most
sacred, especially as it is the one created by Sultan
Hamengkubuwono II," he said. He added that the more sacred the
dance was, the more complicated the ritual needed to be.

So sacred was Hamengkubuwono II's Bedhaya Semang that this
particular dance, according to Wibatsu, was rarely performed. The
latest performance of the dance was held only in Hamengkubuwono
VII's time in 1917, or about 85 years before the Yogyakarta
Palace planned to perform it again this year.

"Even at present, the palace needs time to perform the very
sacred dance in the palace," said Wibatsu, adding that for the
planned performance of Bedhaya Semang, the palace had prepared
for about 18 months.

The Bedhaya Semang dance was first created by Sultan Agung
Hanyokrokusumo, the great grand father of the founder of
Yogyakarta Palace Prince Mangkubumi. The dance tells of the
meeting between two lovers, Panembahan Senopati and Ratu Kidul.

Panembahan Senopati was Sultan Agung's great grandfather who
established Mataram Kingdom that later on was divided into
Yogyakarta and Surakarta Kingdom. This accounts for the similar
sacred dances which also exist in the Surakarta Palace. In fact,
Bedhaya Ketawang that is periodically performed by the Surakarta
Palace is taken from the last half of the piece in the Bedhaya
Semang created by Sultan Agung.

In a further development, Hamengkubuwono I and II refined
Sultan Agung's Bedhaya Semang, creating their own version of
Bedhaya Semang. The one created by Hamengkubuwono II's, for
example, no longer portrays the meeting between Ratu Kidul and
Panembahan Senopati but between Ratu Kidul and Hamengkubuwono II
himself.

"The special thing about Hamengkubuwono II's Bedhaya Semang is
that the lyrics of the accompanying gending (Javanese traditional
music) does not, in a straightforward way, tell about the meeting
between the two lovers. Instead, it tells the story of how human
beings were created, how they should live their lives and how
they finally die," Wibatsu said.

"It is very religious, indeed, and rich of religious guidance.
Watching such a dance while listening to the lyrics of the
accompanying gending, for particular persons, is just like
meditating."

In a much further development, Bedhaya dances do not always
require nine dancers. There are a number of modified Bedhaya
dances that require only seven or even six dances -- they are
then named as Bedhaya Pitu (seven) and Bedhaya Nem (six). Bedhaya
Wiwaha Sangaskara or Bedhaya Manten created by Hamengkubuwono IX
that was performed at the recent royal wedding of Hamengkubuwono
X's daughter GKR Pembayun is an example of a Bedhaya Nem.

The palace, too, is no longer the only party allowed to
perform the sacred dances. Even Bedhaya Sanga (that requires nine
female dancers), which had to be performed inside the palace's
compound and by the palace's dancers up to the Hamengkubuwono
VIII's time, presently can be performed outside the palace.

Bedhaya Jendral Sri Kanawa, which was created by Bray
Yudonegoro, who is the sister-in-law of the late Hamengkubuwono
IX and one of only a few Javanese classic dance choreographers
left, is an example. The dance, which tells about the role of
Hamengkubuwono IX as a national hero during the early years of
the country's independence, is scheduled for a great performance
in July 2002, held to commemorate the return of Yogyakarta into
the country's arms.