Wednesday, July 2, 2008

telung turonggo

We chanced upon this over the weekend. Curious, we asked one of the lady there about the performance/ritual/celebration. We were told it is called Telung Turonggo. I searched the internet on more information wrt this dance but this is the best explaination I can find(in English): is a Trance Horse group where the art is made up of Horse dance,Barongan Show & even man being tranced.

Not satisfied with the search result, I continue searching for related words and this is what I found:

Kuda Lemping (Lumping) Dance on the island of Java, Indonesia.


Among the traditional dances of Java are a number of trance dances. Kuda Lemping (or Lémpéng but often misspelled Lumping so non-Indonesians will know how to pronounce it) is one of these trance dances, in which masks for spirit characters and flat woven bamboo horses are the main props. The dance is about the battle of good and evil, with the horse riding characters going into a trance where they behave like horses. The name Kuda Lemping literally means "flat horses."


The story goes that some spirits battle with the horse riders who fall into trances one by one.


Check out their makeup...Also, all riders are in black with a sarong wrap around them, pretty stylo outfit.






Some of the things that these entranced dancers do:
-pulling the outer husk off a coconut with his teeth


-stepping and rubbing their head against pieces of glass



-fighting for food(that's a coconut that they are fighting over)



-being whipped



-riders fighting amongst themselves



-drinking from the pail like a horse?


Apparently, a by-stander was in some way possessed by the spirit and was transformed into a chicken....there was quite a commotion, people moved away for fear that they too will be possessed. Someone came along with this incense burner, utter something, etc and the person was awake..






If this is all part of a perfomance, I would say I enjoyed the "spirit leaving the riders" portion most. There were some moves, the riders "got doen" from their horses and was being held down by the helpers before they fainted...





Some couldn't regain conciousness immediately and have to be carried away...






More props used...



Guess what? This whole thing went on for many hours and we heard it was for some birthday/& anniversary celebration...

2 comments:

wreckwrx said...

Whoah.... how long did it take you to write this post? Great Job!

OUZO said...

I have to admit that it took me a while to research on this...haha