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Panji Sepuh: ‘What are the sins of the flesh?’
In the beginning there was silence. As the audience entered the theater the sound of footsteps and the flapping costumes of seven dancers could be heard.
Dim lighting created an ambience of the supernatural, casting a magic spell that compelled the captivated audience to gaze at the dancers.
The dancers continued to slowly circle the stage to the sound of the erhus, a two-stringed Chinese musical instrument, played by nine musicians.
On center stage, a prince perched on a stone staircase looked down on the dancers as they undid their hair.
The prince climbed down the stairs, handing his jacket to a beautiful dancer in green, and began meditate. The woman continued to slowly dance around him.
Magical and very intense. Those feelings were palpable in the audience when watching Panji Sepuh, a collaboration between poet Goenawan Mohamad, composer Tony Prabowo and choreographer Sulistyo Tirtokusumo.
The dance theater-performance was first staged in 1993. Last week, Teater Salihara in South Jakarta offered a remarkable reinterpretation directed by Yudi Ahmad Tajudin.
The original performance, based on a traditional court dance performed for the sultans of Surakarta, told the story of a prince who left the world to meditate in solitude toclearly see visions of the present and the future.
Since its first performance, Panji Sepuh has used movement to create emotions in lieu of a linear plot and conventional narration.
“This work is abstract, like poetry, Yudi said, “It’s open to different interpretations by the audience.”
Last week’s production was the second time the work was reinterpreted. Yudi said he did not know that Panji Sepuh was based on a traditional dance when he saw the 2006 performance.
Although Yudi lived for a long time in Yogyakarta, the seat of another traditional kingdom near Surakarta, he is not Javanese.
When invited to reinterpret the work, Yudi started to analyze the story from its surface. One line penned by Goenawan had special resonance: “Duh Gusti, apa dosaning raga?” (Dear Lord, what are the sins of the flesh?).
Yudi reimagined the details of the dancers’ movements and the stage for the performance. The stairs at center stage allowed the crown prince to climb up and down and dancers to circle the noble. The set made the performance more grounded while accentuating its abstract and magic elements.
Yudi kept the number of the dancers to seven, a common number in classical Javanese dance and a symbol of a stellar constellation.
Some of the dancers are students of the Indonesia Art Institute (STSI) in Surakarta. Others are court dancers at Mangkunegaran Palace, where some of the sultan’s family lives.
Yudi also highlighted the mood in the dancers’ movements, which employed bedhaya classical Javanese dance, and their facial expressions, gestures and gazes. Every movement was evocative. One detail Yudi added was a rainstorm that broke in the middle of the performance, drenching the women as they danced.
The effect was extraordinary.
At first the crown prince meditated on center stage, sheltered under his stone staircase and surrounded by a shallow pool adorned with flower petals.
Then sounds of water falling on the stage mingled with slaps the dancers made while whipping the wet trains of their costumes. The effect was magical.
The pool, abstractly represented in previous iterations, was physically realized for this performance. The set, although less abstract, created a deep impression of magic and the supernatural. The impression deepened when one considered water is the symbol of nature’s way to cleanse itself.
Another important element of the performance was the music composed by Tony Prabowo. The erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument — the only Chinese instrument used in the performance — produced sounds that were at times orderly and melodic and at times discordant.
Tony chose the erhu due to the instrument’s unique qualities. It can be instantly silenced when a musician stops the bow. The sounds of erhu also evoked the supernatural atmosphere Tony was aiming for. Tony said he did not change much of the composition. “Not as much as what Yudi did to elements of the theatrical staging and dance.”
The musicians also sang Javanese songs that boomed beautifully across the room, intensifying the performances of the dancers. The combination of dance, expression and music was riveting, despite the deliberate pacing of the performance.
Panji Sepuh presented the audience with a paradox. It was a performance that looked very Javanese, with Javanese costumes and music and excerpts from bedhaya. At the same time the ambience was distinctly non-Javanese or perhaps a depiction of an alternate Java from another dimension.
A paradox also presented itself when trying to understand the performance: Was the crown prince imagining the future? Or was an older king reflecting on the past.
As Yudi said, Panji Sepuh invites a variety of interpretations, all of which enrich the performance itself.
Juliana Harsianti
The Jakarta Post, 08/16/2011
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