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INDONESIA
Sumatra I returned to Indonesia in 2015-16 and visited four islands including Sumatra. |
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Indonesia music spans everything from thousand-year-old traditional music to high-powered punk pop.*
Most of their musical instruments are similar to those found elsewhere in Indonesia-
cloth-covered copper gongs in varying sizes...* Dance is an important part of Minangkabau culture.*
and the dazzling tari lilin (candle dance), in which female dancers are required to rhythmically juggle and balance china saucers - with burning candles attached to them - while simultaneously clicking castanets.*
Every village in West Sumatra has at least one all-male randai group of 20 performers.*
The Minangkabau people, centred around Bukitinggi, also produce interesting palm leaf bags and purses...*
These kids in Padang were practising a play.
A purely Batak tradition is the siganlegale puppet dance, once performed at funerals, but now more often a part of wedding ceremonies.*
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Music is as important to the Bataks as it is to most societies, but traditionally it was played as part of religious ceremonies rather than for everyday pleasure.*
...struck with wooden hammers; a small two-stringed violin, which makes a pure but harsh sound; and a kind of reedy clarinet.*
Dances include the colourful tari payung (umbrella dance), a welcome dance about a young man's love for his girlfriend;...*
The most popular of the Minangkabau dances is the randai, a dance-drama performed at weddings, harvest festivals and other celebrations.*
The traditional version tells the story of a woman so wilful and wicked that she is driven out of her village before she brings complete disaster on the community.*
Prior to their contact with the outer world, the people of the Indonesian archipelago had already developed their own styles of dancing. Dances in Indonesia are believed by many scholars to have had their beginning in rituals and religious worship.
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Today the Bataks are famous for their powerful and emotive hymn singing.*
Padang is typical of Sumatra's modern landscape: a sprawling noisy place circumnavigated by tipped-out opelet blasting squeaks-and-beeps techno music.*
the dramatic tari piring (plate dance), which involves the dancers leaping barefoot on piles of broken china;...*
The steps and movements for the randai developed from pencak silat, a self-defence routine, combined with themes from pencak silat, a self-defence routine, combined with themes from literature and gamelan music.*
Traditional Batak dancing is performed in Simanindo each day.
Taman Budaya Cultural Centre stages sporadic performances as well as poetry readings, plays and exhibitions of paintings and carvings.
I was surprised when attendees at a funeral on Pulau Samosir invited me to videotape the proceedings.
I watched a martial arts class in Bukittinggi.
Famous or songket weaving and wood-carving, Pandai Sikat stays true to its name, which means 'clever craftsmen'.*
Toba gets touted as Sumatra's prettiest volcanic lake, a claim that detracts from its real appeal: the Batak people.*
In what was such a heavily forested nation, it's no surprise woodcarving took hold across the archipelago, with each culture developing its own style.*
Getting to Rogdon by motorcycle was a nightmare. Eventually, I hired a young local to drive me over the impossibly rough roads.
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* These captions are from Indonesia -- Lonely Planet's travel guide.