Indonesian dance reflects the diversity of cultre from various ethnic groups in Indonesia. Each ethnic group has its own style of dances. There are thousands of styles from Sabang to Merauke. Taditional dances of Indonesia can be divided into three eras. The pre-historic era, Hindu-Buddha era and the Islamic era.
The traditional dances in the pre-historic era is a very old kind of dance. Now it is rare to find, or maybe it is already forgotten by the Indonesian people. Because it was found in the ancient times. Then there is the traditional dance from Hindu-Buddha era. It originated from the Kingdom and people of Hindu-Buddha. The example for the later is the Kecak Dance. It is from Bali also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant. This dance is performed by a circle of 150 people or more performers wearing checked clothes (kain sarung kotak-kotak) around their waist, percusively chanting "Cak" and throwing up their arms. The dance depicts the battle from the Ramayana legend. It is showing the scene of the monkey-like warrior "Hanoman" help prince Rama fight the evil King Rahvana. There is also the Islamic era of traditional dance and it came from the Eastern people who traveled to Indonesia and shared their dances to the native Indonesian. The dance eventually became a unique blend of Middle East and local cultures. One of the example is the Saman dance from Aceh.
We can find various traditional dances from the Western to the Eastern part of Indonesia. From the Western part of Indonesia, we can find Saman dance from Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. This has became a very popular dance in the last few years. It is like a body percussion and singing/chanting the Islamic song. The movement of the performers have to be precisely organized. We have also piring dance from Minangkabau West Sumatera. This dance has a motion that resembles the movement of farmers during plantation. This dance also simbolizes joy and gratitude with the results of their corps. This dance needs a special skill where the dancers are holding plates on their palms with a very quick movement accompanied by a song played by talempong and saluang. Also we have Musyoh dance from the Eastern Indonesia, Papua. Musyoh is a sacred dance in an effort to expel ghost of people died in accidents.
We have to preserve our rich traditional culture as our national heritage. We have to be proud of our own culture and show our strong local identity to the world. We can learn a great deal of history and wisdom of our ancestors by studying and preserving our national heritage.
Izza Hafiz Hilmi
X-E
