 The sacred dance ofBedhaya Ketawang | |
| Native name | Javanese:ꦧꦼꦝꦪ,romanized: bedhaya |
|---|---|
| Genre | Traditional dance |
| Instrument(s) | Gamelan |
| Inventor | Javanese |
| Origin | Indonesia |
Thebedhaya (also written asbedoyo,beḍaya and various other transliterations) (Javanese:ꦧꦼꦝꦪ,romanized: Bedhaya) is a sacred, ritualisedJavanese dance ofJava,Indonesia, associated with the royal palaces ofYogyakarta andSurakarta. Along with thesrimpi, the bedhaya epitomized the elegant (Javanese:ꦲꦭꦸꦱ꧀,romanized: alus) character of the royal court and became an important symbol of the ruler's power.
The bedhaya has different forms in the two court cities, thebedhayaKetawang in Surakarta (Solo) and thebedhaya Semang in Yogyakarta, the latter of which has not been performed for more than 20 years. The Solonese dance continues to be performed once per year on the second day of the Javanese month of Ruwah (May), to commemorate the ascension of the currentSusuhunan (prince) of Surakarta. Nine females, relatives or wives of the Susuhunan, perform the dance before a private audience. An invitation to anyone outside of the inner circle of the court is a considerable honor.[1]
Some kind of female dance known asbedhaya existed on Java at least as early as theMajapahit Empire.[2] Indeed, some of the steps of the modern dance are said to be as old as the third century.[3] However, the modern form is traditionally dated to the court ofSultan Agung of Mataram (reigned 1613–1645). Unfortunately, there is almost no historical evidence to back up the claims made about the advances in the arts in Sultan Agung's courts, and the existence of the dance was not clearly documented until the late 18th century.[4]
There are manymyths which explain the origin of the dance, which generally have either an account of a meeting with anIndic deity (Shiva,Brahma,Vishnu,Indra, orLord Buddha), or the meeting ofKangjeng Ratu Kidul, the Goddess of the South Sea, with a founder of theMataram dynasty, either Sultan Ageng or his grandfather,Senapati. In the former, the nine dancers were the creation of a deity who was brought to life and offered the dance to their maker in gratitude. In the latter, the dance was created when Kangjeng Ratu Kidul fell in love with the sultan and danced the bedhaya for him; the nine dancers in the modern dance represent the spirit of the goddess.[5]
Since the decline in the power of the royal courts, other, more accessible forms of bedhaya have become popular, not as religious ritual, but as artistic performance. These do not require the royal presence, and may be performed on stage for an admission fee. They frequently recount stories used inwayang.[6]
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The dance is held in apendhapa, a pillared audience hall with a peaked roof, with the Susuhunan on a throne in the middle of the room. The dance is performed in three large sections. In each section, the dancers emerge from a room behind the audience hall, approach the throne single file, dance in front of the throne, and then retreat, again single file. They approach and retreat on opposite sides of the throne, thuscircumambulating the throne in aclockwise direction, the appropriate direction for veneration inBuddhist andShaivist traditions.
A name and number is given to each of the nine dancers, which designate a specific position in the changing choreographic pattern. There are slight variations between different sources in the names and numbers of the dancers, but there is consensus on the general forms. They are: a human being, representingtaṇhā (the word for desire or craving in Buddhism), fourchakras (the top three of which are used as note names; seeslendro), and the four limbs:[7]
The first two sections of the dance each have three positions, with slight variations, while the last adds a final, fourth position. The first position is in the shape of a human being, with the first five dancers in a line down the middle, and those representing the right and left sides in front and behind (from the perspective of the Susuhunan), respectively. In the second position, the dancers divide into two facing groups, the arms and desire to one side, and the chakras and legs on the other. In the third section of the dance, there is an added section of an encounter between the desire and head dancers in the second position, while the other dancers squat. The third position places the dancers either in a row (Surakarta) or with the arms to one side (Yogyakarta), with desire in the middle. The final position is in a 3x3 grid (rakit tiga-tiga), with the three upper chakra centers in the middle column.[8]
The dance is accompanied with the singing of men and women together. The style is known assindhenan lampah sekar. Formerly only women sang; however since at least the 1940s men have also sung these parts. In Surakarta, instead of a fullgamelan, the only instruments used are thecolotomic instruments (kethuk,kenong, andgong), thekemanak, and drums (kendhang ketipung and gendhing); there are nobalungan instruments and only sometimes other melodic instruments (such asgambang andgendér). In the Yogyakartakraton, where the dance is no longer performed as ritual, the completegamelan was used as accompaniment, sometimes even featuringcornets.[9]
The pieces used to accompany the dances are traditionallygendhing with long structures (originally designated at leastkethuk 4 arang; seegendhing for an explanation); however, shorter gendhings were also used later (such askethuk 4 kerep orkethuk 2). The most ancient and sacred song is theBedhaya Ketawang. When the bedhaya dancers appear on stage, in Yogyakarta it was accompanied by anayak-ayakan; in Surakarta, it is only accompanied by apathetan known aspathetan bedhaya, which has lost much of the rhythmic freedom associated withpathetans to fit better the stride of the dancers.[10]
The literary renaissance of Java in the 18th and 19th centuries, which greatly changed Javanese music, had as one of its first effects the creation of genres of gendhing to accompany bedhaya and serimpi, known asgendhing kemanak andgendhing bedhaya-serimpi. The former were based on a newly composed choral melody, while the latter fitted a new choral part into a pre-existing gendhing melody played by the gamelan. Hundreds of stanzas of text were written for these parts, and a particular gendhing uses at least a dozen. The texts are mainly in the form of awangsalan (poetic riddle), and deal with a wide variety of subjects.[11] Much of the text is erotic love poetry, describing the attraction of Kangjeng Ratu Kidul to Sultan Agung.[12]
There are manytaboos regarding the performance and rehearsal of theBedhaya ketawang, both the song and the dance associated with it. It is only allowed to be rehearsed every 35 days (when Thursday of the seven-day week coincides with Kliwon, the fifth day of the five-day week of theJavanese calendar), and performed on the anniversaries of theSusuhunan's accession to the throne. All rehearsals, and especially the performance, must be accompanied by offerings (many of which correspond to those specified in theGandavyuha Sutra). The dancers must fast and undergo ritual purification, they must be in bridal dress and cover the upper part of their bodies inturmeric (borèh). When the text is copied, a few intentional mistakes are inserted to avoid copying a sacred text literally. This is all because during any performance or rehearsal, the deputies ofRatu Kidul are said to be present.[13]
The dance can be interpreted in a number of ways, including as an abstract sequence of positions, and a reenactment of the love between the goddess and a royal ancestor. Another common interpretation is that they symbolizemilitary formations, which may explain why the dancers are given names offlanks. Furthermore, the dancers were brought onto battlefields with the Yogyakartan ruler.[14] Some of the choreographic positions are vaguely similar to those that were believed to have been used in theKurukshetra war, the war in theMahabharata, and some of the texts tell of military victories.
Judith Becker provides atantric interpretation. The first position shows desire plus the body; the second shows opposition between desire and the chakras (there is some evidence that the legs were considered a fifth chakra), and in the final section, interaction between the head and desire. Afterwards, desire is absorbed into the body, and then the dancers are arranged in the same arrangement as offerings in the Majapahit palace. Three is a number rich inHindu symbolism, like the threepramanas, theTrilokya or theTrimurti, so a threefold set of three symbolizes completion and perfection.[15]
In the 19th century, dancers held and fired pistols in the performance of the bedhaya.[16]Sumarsam considered the meaning of the use of pistols an aristocratic attempt to adopt a foreign element to show enhance royal power, or the secularization and informalization of the court ritual when in the presence of European guests.[17]
During some period in the 19th century, the dancers in Yogyakarta were young men dressed as women. The combination of characteristics of both sexes was thought to have a special spiritual power.[1]
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