Beyond the zest for culture, one question remains, re-inviting an ideal answer: What’s the perfect way of bringing the mishmash of traditions closer to the wider society?
Cultural enthusiasts have come with a myriad of answers that have led to places and stages, as they

shared their passions through events and performances. Sharmi Ranti Wiranatakusumah and her friends are no exception, providing what they expect to be the ideal answer to engage one tradition with another — under one big umbrella.

Promoting the concept of “the past, present and future”, Sharmi and the Merah Putih Foundation are embracing the smörgåsbord of Indonesian traditions. Recently, they kicked off with the charming West Java’s Sundanese culture as their pilot project.

Just like the name of the project — “Ngeunteung Ka Lembur” (Reflecting Our Homeland) — the audience was taken in a journey to see how the Sundanese culture has evolved from time to time, and how they would survive in the future by embracing digital technology.

“There are many ways to reintroduce our arts and culture, but we seek for a strong concept that can connect them with each other so people would get deeper impression,” said Sharmi, the project’s initiator, after the event in Jakarta last week.

Watching the performance was like reading a storybook, where one chapter leads to another one. The story commenced with the parade of people dressed up like rice-field effigies (orang-orangan sawah), or bebegig in Sundanese.

While in reality the bebegig is placed in a paddy field to scare away grain-eating birds, the effigy-men that night symbolized a prayer in hoping the performance would run smooth and safe, without any distraction.  

In bringing out the bebegig, the audience was actually introduced to the old Sundanese philosophy: There’s no need to destroy a gadfly, but just make it stay away from us. And doing this means the Sundanese accept the existence of other people or creatures in life.

The philosophy marked the opening of the performance’s first time-frame — bihari or the past. Here, the famous mythology of Dewi Sri — dubbed the Goddess of Rice and Fertility — was brought to the stage, which was transformed into the historical Padang Mountain in Cianjur. The mountain is known as South Asia’s biggest megalithic site in the form of two-terrace structures (punden berundak).

With the Padang Mountain as the backdrop, and the dynamic-yet-soothing sound of West Java’s traditional bamboo instrument angklung creating a mystical ambiance, a number of women appeared on the stage, performing the ronggeng gunung dance.

Ronggeng was banned in 1948, following many deviations in its performance. The original dance movement of shaking hands (between the dancers and the audience), for example, was replaced with acts like kissing and touching. In between the period of 1904 and 1945, Ronggeng had been negatively perceived among the public, as it was associated with prostitution.

In 1950, however, the government lifted its ban on Ronggeng, with some improvements in its movements were made. In addition, dancers and the audience aren’t allowed to make any physical contact with each other.

While traditional dances like Ronggeng today is facing outright bans following the controversial 2008 Pornography Law — with some hard-liners trying to ban dances they consider erotic, Sharmi and her friends throw them into the limelight.

That night, besides Ronggeng, Sundanese’s Jaipong, Tari Topeng (mask dance) and Tari Merak (peacock dance), were also brought to the stage, accompanied by the avant-garde Ozenk Percussion group who twisted the Sundanese beats into some jazzy style. Both Ozenk and these famous dances marked the shift from the past Sunda to the present one, or called kiwari.

The Merak dance made the first appearance among the three dances that night. Just like how the name suggests, 10 female dancers were beautifully dressed in colorful peacock costumes.

As the philosophy goes, the dance, created by Sundanese dance pioneer Tjetje Soemantri in the 1950s, peacocks reflect the character of the Sundanese people, who are cheerful, extroverted and flamboyant.

A fusion of the traditional ketuk tilu, kliningan, bajidoran and penca performances, the Jaipong reflects the Sundanese people’s characters of cheerful, humorous, spiritual, spontaneous and simple. When first performed, however, the Jaipong was the subject of controversy as it was considered erotic and vulgar.

Fortunately, media exposures at that time helped boost the popularity of Gugum and his creations, especially after the state-owned television station TVRI invited Jaipong dancers to perform. This, at the end, brought fame to the Jaipong, with many state and private bodies wanting the dance at their events.
While the history of the Jaipong and the Merak dances show the modern Sundanese, the topeng dance, on the other hand, provide different kind of story.

In the performance that night, which was bathed in a mystical ambiance, the Topeng dance gave the audience a glimpse of how an arts performance had contributed to the dissemination of Islam in West Java.

Believed to be introduced by Sunan Gunung Jati, one of the Wali Songo (Nine Islamic Saints who spread Islam in the Hindu-Buddhist communities in Java), the Topeng dance depicts the “good vs evil” wisdom, telling how humans in life carry different characters.

Dances, including those performed in a theatrical style, were certainly not the only highlight of Ngeunteung Ka Lembur. In act titled “the past”, the famous literature piece Wawacan Panji Wulung was also performed.

The piece, written by Sharmi’s own grandfather — R.H. Moehamad Moesa, a central figure in the revolutionary of Sundanese thought in the 19th century, was a compulsory reading in schools during the Dutch colonial era between the 1920 and 1930.

In “the present” act, director Wawan Sofwan included modern poetry readings by Godi Suwarna. Performing the piece titled Grand Prix, Godi was accompanied by four players of egrang — or jejangkungan in Sundanese. Jejangkungan is one of Sundanese traditional games, in which the players stand on some 50- centimeter to 2.5-meter-long bamboo sticks on both of his feet.

Besides the modern poetry reading, the show saw the unique performance of senior soprano singer Ati Sriyati. Usually sings classical notes, Ati that night showed what she called with “spontaneity debut” in Sundanese language.

In bringing Ati on the stage, “Ngeunteung Ka Lembur” wished to breathe new spirit into Sundanese singing tradition — and the culture in a whole. This could also be seen during the last stage-part — Baringsupagi or the future.

So, in this last part of the show, multimedia became the keyword, with a number of Sundanese arts and culture pieces were being recreated — combining  texts, graphics, animations, audio and video. Through multimedia, they said, the spirit of Sundanese could still be explored and preserved.

In their own words, “It’s like becoming a strong tree — of which its strong roots hold the plant tight to the ground, while the leaves stay as high as the sky.”

— Photos by JP/Ricky Yudhistira

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