East Javanese trance dances

An dialog from the jinarwa list. 14 February, 1995

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 12:44:19 -0600
From: grunden amanda m <agrunden@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Reog
Sender: owner-jinarwa@auckland.ac.nz
Message-id: <Pine.DYN.3.91.950214123426.13741A-100000@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>

I am a grad. student doing a project on E. Javanese trance dances and would appreciate any correspondence regarding these traditions - jaran kepang, reog, kuda lumping, dan tari kesurupan in general.

Also, answers to the following questions would be helpful.

why does there seem to be an increase of the types of performances during the month of Suro?
it seems there are now many reof groups with young women. Id this a more recent development? I thought that young males were more common? What changed to allow the increase of female participation?
What the differences between these various dances: as far as function, use, story behind the dance? They all seem to employ Barong to some degree and the use of "horses" while dancing.
Have these traditions continued in the migration communities in South Sumatra and East Kalimantan as E. Javanese have moved there? How are they used in these migrant locations?

Yah, ada banyak pertanyaan, tetapi kalau bisa membantu hanya sedikit, biaklah.

amanda

agrunden@uiuc.edu

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 11:24:05 +0100 (MET)
From: Ben Arps <ARPS@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl>
Subject: Reog and the like
Sender: owner-jinarwa@auckland.ac.nz
Message-id: <01HN2RR3G6EQ9BVH29@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl>

Amanda M. Grunden enquired about E. Javanese trance dances.

The person to approach about East Javanese trance performances is:

Dr. Victoria M. Clara van Groenendael
Spuistraat 253-III
1012 VR Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Victoria has done extensive fieldwork on the subject, produced several papers (one is listed in Caraka no. 22/23 [Dec. 1994], p.17), and is working on a monograph. She is probably not on the internet.

I do not know about such performance genres in transmigrasi areas in Indonesia, but in Suriname (and in the Netherlands, where thousands of Suriname Javanese moved in the 1970s) they certainly exist. Some sources:

Gooswit, Sylvia. 1988. Jaran kepang in Suriname: een kwestie van rukun.: Unpublished MA thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen.
Grasveld, Fons, and Klaas Breunissen. 1990. 'Ik ben een Javaan uit Suriname.': [Hilversum:] Stichting IdeBle Filmprodukties. [119 pp. Jaran kepang on pp. 78-81.]
Wengen, G. D. van. 1975. The cultural inheritance of the Javanese in Surinam.: Leiden: E. J. Brill. Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, 19. [iii + 55 pp.] [Jaran kepang on pp. 34-38.]