Woke up this morning to the sounds of a performance and spend the whole day watching, pretty amazing, the music was oncredible, very swinging trance music, Kuda Lumping, the dancers would go into a trance, becoming possessed by various animals, mostly by monleys, there were also quiet a few helpers who would get those dancers out of their trance, amazing stuff right in front of my house....
Mind blowing, Henk. I now have a small vision of your place of residency. Interesting...
ReplyDeleteThis dance/trance that these folks "perform", what country of origin is this from? Also, I'm curious about when it all began. Any more history would be great. Thanx for this insight, I knew nothing of it. It's reminiscent of older Grateful Dead shows I've been to...
yeah it was pretty amazing, this is Kuda Lumping, there's also Kuda Renggong, one area here in Bandung is famous for it, Ujung Breung, there they go a lot harder, eating glass, razor blades, that sort of thing, not sure how old it is but it's old, to the west in Banten they've got Debus, really, all over Indonesia there are many forms of magic, rituals etc., and I was really surprised that it was performed in my village, they've been having a very hard time, the ultra right wing Islamists want to see it banned, they even tried to get jaipong banned saying the dance is too sexually provocative (the gouvernor of West-Java Ahmad Heryawan was behind that, it caused quiet a bit of suffering and hardship for the jaipong dancers and musicians for a while there and him being implicated in many corruption cases seems to be ok with them but that's another story). Even wayang shows have been attacked in recent years....
ReplyDeleteYou always hear people say that the magic is strongest in Kalimantan where the Dayak people live....
People are advised not to bring their children to Kuda Renggong shows, seems kids can get possessed easily, a thing that happened to one of the workers in our hotel, his kid became very violent after being at a Kuda Renggong show and it took an ustad (Islamic preacher) to make him ok again....
It's all pretty weird for a guy from Rotterdam, Holland, but after 18 years of living here, well, you see things a bit different then when you first started living here, honestly, I've seen some pretty crazy stuff over the years although I've got to say, I've had a pretty wild life back in Rotterdam, many, many crazy adventures but that's another story too....
So they didn't manage to get you this time? Ha ha, just jokin'! Thanks for sharing this. It puts another spin on all the musical posts. It's great when these traditions are allowed to continue (keep the kids away if necessary, goes without saying, not everything has to be disney). Did you have your digital recorder at the ready?
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wish i had a digital recorder, the music really was awesome! been to disney orlando twice, absolutely amazing place :) (not to mention the salvador dali museum in st. petersburg, also in florida)
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