Dance at Prambanan

The exploration of the Prambanan complex presented through this virtual site gives an unusually prominent role to dance. There are several reasons for this. Today, the Prambanan site is associated with dance, which is regularly performed, in the form of Sendratari Ramayana, in its open air theatre, to which the complex lends a spectacular backdrop. Therefore Prambanan and sendratari dance are, in a contemporary context, practically synonymous with each other. 

If one is to go by what is shown in the reliefs of the complex, dance seems to have been an activity of some importance in Java also when the complex was first built. Dance appears in the Ramayana reliefs of candi Siwa and candi Brahma and is seen as integral part of the narrative in a ritual and celebratory context. It also appears as a stand-alone ‘dance narrative’ in the dance panels of candi Siwa, the main temple of the complex, that is, as dance phrases which can be strung together to create a choreography. 

The dance reliefs of Prambanan are not unique in Central Java in terms of their subject matter. Candi Borobodur too has a great number of reliefs, narrative and non-narrative, in which dancers are shown in action. The Prambanan dance reliefs are found on candi Siwa. Art historians have looked at these reliefs in some detail, analysing design and composition; several Javanese contemporary dancers have examined them carefully, the movements and postures providing an inspiration for creative work. 

The reliefs put across the subject of dance as integral part of a contextual study of the site, allowing us to look at the many landscapes of dance, past and present, and the movements of its practitioners within those landscapes. The dance past constitutes a complex narrative with images and symbols which have a powerful grip on the present. 

As images of the human body , the reliefs remind us of the need for an archaeological account of the body which deals with human beings, people who experience a range of emotions and are engaged in physical actions. This is a far cry from the disembodied archaeological narratives we are more accustomed to. As dance relics the reliefs yield information useful for engaging in a challenging movement reconstruction and replication - a re-appropriation of obsolete movement practices. As material culture they are bound up with issues of heritage and its construction. 

The heritage discourse involves dance, routinely included as educational entertainment, in the public events calendar of historic sites looked after by heritage bodies. This is a phenomenon of global proportions. The construction of dance as heritage is connected with mass and tourist consumption of the recreated archaeological heritage. The construction of heritage links images, ideas and practices with identity, variedly defined. 

Dance at Prambanan is national ritual and spectacle. The Sendratari Ramayana was first created in 1961, for Prambanan, by then a national archaeological park. The innovative element of this new dance genre was that the Javanese dialogue of Javanese court genres involving dance and acting, such as Wayang Orang, had been eliminated, the intention being that the story should be accessible to anyone, through a ‘universally’ understood language of dance and music. The word sendratari is made up of the words seni (art), drama (drama) and tari (dance) and we can translate it as ‘the art of dance-drama’ or, more to the point, dance-drama. 

This modern dance-drama centred on a mythological, epic theme was not an exclusively Indonesian invention. Drama-ballets became popular in India from the late 1950s onwards, perhaps stimulated by the resurgence of classical ballet in Soviet Russia, whose lavish productions of new ballets with a strong dramatic content were beginning to be seen on foreign tours. The basic ingredients of these successful productions were large casts, an inspirational, edifying narrative based on well loved or popular themes, dance movements adapted from a variety of regional and folk dance styles, costumes fashioned after ancient or traditional folk styles of dress.

The drama-ballet became an established genre and the concept inspired a number of dance works. Countless Indian productions of the 1960s and 1970s were drama-ballets based on Indian classical dance techniques and on subjects drawn from Hindu mythology, the Ramayana having pride of place. Another influence can be found in the son-et-lumiere spectacles created at Angkor, in Cambodia, for tourist consumptiopn. 

Sendratari was the Indonesian version of the drama-ballet, adapted to Indonesian conditions. It became popular in both Java and also in Bali, where it quickly spread, giving rise to yet other versions of Sendratari Ramayana, this time incorporating Balinese kecak. As a form of commissioned state art, sendratari reflected the new nation’s self-image and subsequently became one of the best subsidised artistic expressions of the Indonesian New Order. 

A site such as Prambanan has undergone a profound transformation in terms of its contemporary use. Surrounded by amenities, it attracts thousands of visitors everyday and as such it is an important source of revenue. The Sendratari Ramayana performances are the highlight of a visit to Prambanan during the dry season. Through Sendratari Ramayana the story of Prince Rama, a model ruler, is told in the idiom of representational dance, refashioned from the steps and movements of more traditional Javanese court dances and set to the music of the gamelan. The Sendratari Ramayana provides a contemporary re-embodiment of the Ramayana story, with a tale which stresses a message of just rule, triumph of good over evil through overcoming adversity, loyalty, steadfastness and self sacrifice, conjugal love, filial piety and abnegation. 

It is not a coincidence that the story chosen as a theme for the Prambanan sendratari is depicted in reliefs on the inner side of the balustrades of candi Siwa and candi Brahma, in the inner court of the complex. The continuous use of the Ramayana story as a vehicle for the glorification of royal rule has been highlighted by historical research. This is most likely to be one of the reasons why the story was depicted at Prambanan, which was conceived as a royal state temple. It is from the reliefs themselves that we gather that one of the functions of dance in the ninth century was that of celebratory entertainment, in a way which seems to have been reappropriated today in the Sendratari Ramayana performances. In the Ramayana reliefs the crowning of Bharata as new king is clearly set amidst dance performances, shown as taking place in an open space. The subject matter of these dance performances is unknown to us. They are most unlikely to be re-enactments of the Ramayana, since they are set within the Ramayana story. Yet their presence is symptomatic of a role for dance in the narrative which was a reflection of its social function in ninth century Java. 

We cannot entirely rule out that dance performances with the Ramayana as their theme took place at Prambanan in the ninth and tenth century. The Ramayana story is an older import from India, through which a clear message about just rule is put across. The story inspired, for centuries to come, literary works, the visual arts and the performing arts of the Javanese courts. It is thus possible that it would have been a source of inspiration for the performing arts also when the temple complex was built. Its use as subject matter for today’s sendratari is significant, as through this an unbroken continuity with the past is conjured up and re-established, reinforced by the presence of the Ramayana reliefs. 

Investigating present day associations of dance and the complex may be relatively easy to do, but can one find out in greater detail about ninth century dancing at a ninth century site? Is an archaeology of dance at the Prambanan site possible? It really depends on what we mean by ‘archaeology’. 

The reliefs of Prambanan are unusually clear in the way movement and stances are outlined and they are helpful reference material for any attempt at movement reconstruction. A variety of tools has been used in the context of this project for recreating the dance techniques seen in the Prambanan reliefs and they will be discussed in depth in other sections. The important point that needs to be addressed here and which has conceptually informed the research for this project, is that reconstruction as an attempt to restore the past, filling in gaps, is an interpretive encounter based on plausibility. There is not and there cannot be a guarantee of authenticity. 

Dance reconstruction cannot be perceived only as a revival of petrified heritage in the name of antiquity and preservation of the authenticity of tradition. Rather, as a form of intellectual enquiry inscribed in the present, dance reconstruction, through acknowledging its dependence on interpretation , can distance itself from one-sided views of tradition and heritage. Re-embodying dance movements makes them come to life as movements and becomes itself a metaphor for the whole archaeological process, an archaeology which is written through the body and becomes bodily writing. In other words, an archaeology which is also choreography. 

Alessandra Lopez y Royo, London 18th April 2002