International Dance Day was celebrated in Surakarta, Central Java, on Sunday.

Over 5,000 people performed the gambyong dance on Jl. Slamet Riyadi, filling the city’s main road for up to 2 kilometers.

From 6 a.m., thousands of performers, comprising students, members of dance studios and professional dancers, lined up along the road. Thousands of spectators waited on side of the road. Every Sunday, Jl. Slamet Riyadi is a Car Free Day zone.

At exactly 8 a.m., the performers began to dance the traditional dance, the brainchild of King Pakubuwono IV.

Surakarta Mayor FX Hadi Rudyatmo and Deputy Mayor Achmad Purnomo, as well as administration staff, danced along after two senior dancers draped stoles over their necks, an invitation to dance.

Afterward, 1,500 spectators were also invited by the dancers. Through the same gesture of having stoles draped over the shoulders, spectators then joined the dance.

The colossal dance set a new record at the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI) with 5,035 dancers.

“The number of the dancers is much higher than before. We have also set a new world record for the most female gambyong dancers,” said Ariyani Siregar of MURI.

Read also: 5,000 dancers to enliven World Dance Day celebration in Surakarta

Another event celebrating International Dance Day was also held at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) campus, Surakarta, with thousands of participants from Indonesia, as well as France and China.

The dancers took turns performing traditional dances from Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara; Indramayu, West Java; Yogyakarta, Central Java; to Papua, among other places.

Among those dancers, three performed for 24 hours on campus. They were Wirastuti Sulistyaningtyas from Surakarta, Agatha Irena Praditya from Yogyakarta and Sri Anjani Safitri from Bandung.

They had started dancing at around 6 a.m., while hundreds of dancers from 160 art groups took turns performing alongside. They stopped dancing on Monday, right at 6 a.m.

“For me, this is a mental test. I had to mentally prepare,” said Agatha on Saturday.   

Guntur, the chancellor of ISI Surakarta, said the theme of this year’s event was “Revealing Civilization”.

“Every civilization has various languages of motion, but all of them aim for beauty. This philosophy should serve as an example,” he said.

Among the dancers at ISI Surakarta were children, teenagers and adults of different religions, occupations and ethnic backgrounds. Art groups and village communities also took turns performing dances.

The annual dance event was closed by a culture oration from filmmaker and humanist Garin Nugroho. (wng)