I shot these images of Kuda Kepang or Kuda Lumping dance last Saturday when walking around the Joo Chiat road. I initially wanted to shoot some street photography around the area, but then stopped to watch this for almost an hour. It’s not just a dance, it’s a trance dance. The dancers were possessed and went into trance state. They can perform some superhuman feats, such as eating glass (I missed this one as it already happened when I arrived), rolling their body on broken glasses and resistance to whipping like the one above and below.
Reog Ponorogo
Reog is an Indonesian traditional mask dance where the dancers carry a very heavy, ornamented tiger head with peacock feathers in wide winged. This dance depicts a fight between a tiger and two noblemen on horseback. These masks are almost 50 kg heavy, worn by one man (called warok) by biting the wood inside the mask. It is impossible to normal teeth, that’s why all waroks are on trance conditions when dancing with this big heavy mask.
Gambyong Dance
Gambyong is a dance which is performed to welcome guests or to initiate a wedding. Commonly the dancer is averagely young and beautiful. As a performance art, Gambyong gives you a unique esthetic experience, so it is good as a tour object of arts and culture.
They say that they named the dance after a taledhek dancer. She lived in the era of Sunan Paku Buwana IV in Surakarta. She was also mentioned in a book Cariyos Lelampahanipun by Suwargi R.Ng. Ronggowarsito (1803-1873). The book said that there lived a ledhek dancer called Gambyong who was very good at dancing and singing so that all men adored her.