Rescuing the Art of East Java
By Juliana Wilson, Photographs by Sasa Kralj, in Island Life, Vol. 3, No. 13, 20 - 25
THE FULL MEANING OF ART IN INDONESIA ENCOMPASSES ALL FORMS OF EXPRESSION. WHEN CONSIDERING ART IN ITS BROADEST SENSE USUALLY WHAT COMES TO MIND IS BALI OR CENTRAL JAVA. THESE ARE SAFE, SECURE. BUT FOR THOSE VENTURING A BIT FARTHER AFIELD ON A TRIP TO MALANG OR MOUNT BROMO, A STOP AT THE PADEPOKAN PROVIDES A RARE WINDOW INTO THE PRACTICE OF ART WITH A DIFFERENCE-TRADITIONAL EAST JAVANESE ART
The districts of Malang, Surabaya and Jombang have their own distinctive style of wood-carving, singing, dancing, shadow puppetry, theater, and gamelan. East Javanese dance and gamelan are faster, louder and more dynamic than their Central Javanese cousins. Near the city of Malang, in the village of Tumpang, the region's arts are being salvaged thanks to the establishment of a Center by one of East Java's cultural heirs.
Early in the morning at the Padepokan Seni Mangun Dharma Art Center, the sun illuminates two great carved serpents garding the entrance. Inside the courtyard children from the surrounding villages are taking Sunday morning dance class.
Flashes of pink, yellow and red dazzle the eye as rows of elementary school girls flick their dance scarves in time to the drumming. Beyond them, in an open hall of cool marble floors and elegantly carved pillars, sits a shining gamelan, waiting for the children to finish dancing and move onto their music lesson.
Midway through the class, a group of curious American and Japanese tourists en route to Mount Bromo turn up to watch the rehearsal and browse through the traditional masks and woodcarvings for sale in the center's art shop. The group is hoping to see traditional art being practiced and performed outside the confines of a presentation for tourists. They are rewarded with the Sunday rehearsals-morning dance and music classes for children, followed by a professional rehearsal with local artists in the late afternoon.
Other more organized visitors come to see a pre-scheduled series of performances from masked dance and shadow puppets to a form of chanted poetry called mocopot to comedic theater or ludruk.
Passing on local traditions and developing professional performance skills are top priorities for the center's husband and wife proprietors, Kyi Mochamad Soleh Adi Pramono and Nyi Karen Elisabet Sekar Arum, known as Pak Soleh and Ibu Karen. Soleh and Karen make a striking pair. He is a distinguished dancer, dalang (puppet master/narrator) of both shadow plays and masked dancing from a long line of Malang-area artists.
She is an American anthropologist turned dancer and singer who has performed with some of Java's most noted dalangs. Through eleven years of partnership, Soleh and Karen's singular passion has been performing and visual arts. Their success in preserving and promoting these local traditions has brought them awards from the government and led to the designation of the village of Tumpang as a special cultural zone. Pak Soleh's family have been making art in the Malang area for almost 100 years. His father was a dalang; his grandfather was a dancer and dalang in theTengger highlands near Mount Bromo. The family's artistic patriarch though is Soleh's uncle or Pak Dhe.Tirtonoto.
As a boy in the early 1960s, Soleh sat long hours in flickering lamplight watching his aging Pak Dhe Tir rehearse and perform mask dancing. Pak Dhe Tir was an accomplished performer; gifted as a dancer, gamelan musician, and, like his father, a dalang of both mask dancing and shadow plays. His energy and creativity drew artists from throughout the Malang area to Tumpang.
Sadly, after Pak Tir's death, Tumpang artistic traditions declined significantly due to the popularity of Central Javanese arts. During the 1980s in particular, the arts of Solo were perceived to be the best. Given this prestige factor, private sponsors of performances selected Solonese arts rather than local traditions for family events like weddings and circumcisions. Government officials also sponsored performances of the Solonese style for Independence Day celebrations and other important public occasions.
When Soleh returned home in 1987 after completing his Master's Degree at the Indonesian Institute for the Arts (ISI) Yogyakarta he discovered to his horror that the local rehearsal hall had been converted to showing films.
Local artists and members of the community appealed to Soleh, as PakTir's heir, to rebuild the art center which once stood in Tumpang and to help revive traditions in decline. With what little money Soleh possessed and a great deal of donated time and labor from neighbors, the center opened in 1989 with one open hall or pendopo and a thatched roof structure for storing the gamelan.
Three years later, Karen Elizabeth Schrieber arrived in Malang to do research on her Master's Degree. This was not Karen's first experience in Indonesia. As a child, she lived in Yogyakarta and Jakarta for two years and studied dance at Yogyakarta's Taman Siswa. These few years proved to be a life changing experience. She remembers singing along listening to gamelan music in the car. One night she stopped her singing and announced to her parents, "This is what I'm going to be."
Despite her youthful pronouncement, Karen never thought seriously of going into the arts until returning to Java for her research. During her language training in Malang, she saw a performance of Tumpang style mask dancing. From this she developed a passion for mask dancing and for the handsome dalang performing with the troupe.
Today she is a successful performer in her own right, having worked with Kyi Mantob and Kyi Anom, two of Java's most distinguished dalangs. While any performer might be proud of these accomplishments, what brings her the greatest pleasure is using the notoriety she carries as the American pesinden (woman singer with a gamelan orchestra) to help re-establish Malang-style traditional arts.
According to Soleh and Karen, the only way to keep traditional arts alive is to have people who care about them. Barriers to this include the arrival of global entertainment, but also a simple lack of knowledge about the extraordinarily rich cultural heritage throughout Indonesia.
If traditional arts are to continue to have meaning , there must be education and exposure to these traditions. This means training for children and plenty of opportunities to attend performances. With each Sunday dance class and every performance, the Padepokan Seni Mangun Dharma hopes to spread knowledge and appreciation of East Javanese art and to continue its practice among new generations.
Photographs by Sasa Kralj
top home back to overview