Wow, talk about arts in Indonesia again are we. Well, if you don’t know it already, Indonesia is like the heaven of arts, so many types of arts can be found within this country on every corner. So, it must be easy to find the arts that you looking for.
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The things like dances, masks, or other things related to arts can be found easily if you look for them in the right place. Becuase the numbers of them are so many, we divided them into some categories that you can see in the 50 arts in Indonesia below :
1. Traditional Dances, starting from Pendet Dance
The first we want to talk about is the traditional dances. One example of them is this Pendet Dance. This dance is the traditional Balinese dance that always shown during some tourism events in Bali. No wonder many people love it because it’s beautiful.
2. Kecak Dance
The next one is Kecak Dance. This is also one traditional dance of Bali area. The Kecak dance is completeing the theater of Ramayana that always shown in some temples like Uluwatu. So, be sure to check that place if you want to see the Kecak Dance.
3. Serimpi Dance
Serimpi dance is the traditional dance of the Central Java province, Yogyakarta to be exact. This Serimpir dance is considered as a sacred dance that once used on every King inauguration in the Keraton. The ladies who dance it are not the ordinary ones. They must fulfill some tasks first before dancing it on Keraton.
4. Ronggeng Bugis Dance
As a comedy dance, this Ronggen Bugis doesn’t have the sacred and holy purposes like the dances above. The purpose of this dance is only to entertain all the audience. Usually, in this Ronggen Bugis, there will be about 10 up to 20 men who dress up like a girls.
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5. Andun Dance
The next dance is the Andung Dance, which is the traditional dance of Bengkulu area. This dance will be danced on some event like wedding and tourism promotion. This Andun dance usually held in the night, and danced by virgin boys and girls. There’s one purpose of this dance, hoping that boys and girls find their soulmate during the dance.
6. Bedhaya Ketawang Dance
There’s one mystical dance in the area of Central Java called Bedhaya Ketawang. There will be some women that will dancing it, having the beautiful clothing. The Bedhaya actually means women, and Ketawang means sky. So, they are like the angels from the shy heaven, dancing on earth.
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7. Saman Dance
This one came from Aceh, one unique area that Sumatra island has. If you don’t know what it is, the Saman Dance is the group dance which usually consists of some women and dancing from a slow speed at first, but then it’s being more faster and faster til the end of the dance.
8. Paintings, Badai Pasti Berlalu paintings
For the next category, we move to the paintings. In Indonesia, there are some artists who can describe and realize their thoughts in their pretty unique paintings. Like this one, a painting created by Affandi, reflecting the waves of like via the picture of boat and the sun.
9. Balinese Dancers paintings
Some dances in Indonesia can always eye capturing. Like Balinese dances for example, because of how gorgeous it looks, Rusatamadji created this painting that tells us how pretty it is the balinese dancer. Until now, the painting still has high value.
10. Caligraphy
Because of Indonesia is inhabuted with mostyly muslims, some of them also like to create the paintings that have very Islamic theme. Caligraphy in Indonesia can be said as one of the wonderful things that Indonesian people ever created. Even though they are not originated from Arab, they understood the wise words very well, and paint them to a media.
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11. Musics, Sasando Gong
The next thing is the music. Of course, all people love music, we Indonesians do. But Indonesia has several unique traditional musics that you can’t find anywhere else. Like this Sasando Gong for example. This type of music which is originated from East Nusa Tenggara usually used for greeting guests and entertaiment.
12. Tabuh Salimpat
Next one is Tabuh Salimpat, which the the traditional music from Lampung area. They usually will do this kind of music in order to have fun with all people. The sounds of kerenceng and also gambus lunik will hypnotize everyone to sing along.
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13.Senandung Jolo
Senandung Jolo is the music that resembles very well the meaning of togetherness. The people of Jambi will do the Senandung Jolo music during the turun sawah activity, which is the activity of planting rice on the fields. The people will sing along with the other musical instruments while planting them.
14. Laras Madya and Santi Swara
Laras Madya and Stanti Swara are like the same thing, because they both use the same musical instruments, and the flow of the music are almost the same too. They usually held this music during an activity called Shalawatan, especially during the Ramadhan month.
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15. Dangdut
“Dangdut is the music of my country”, that what most Indonesian think.But that’s a fact,the dangdut music is originated in Indonesia, one and only. No only Indonesians do love this, but also people from other countries like America and Japan also like it.
16. Theater, like Sanghyang
There’s one form of theater in Bali called Sanghyang. This art is not only theater standing alone. But actually, it’s combined with the dances to make the show more colourful. This theater has a very deep meaning of life.
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17. Reog
Even though some people refer this as a dance, Reog show is actually a theater. If you notice, on every show, there will be the compositions between warok, and then kuda lumping dancers, and also the Reog itself. Even though there’s no dialogue whatsoever, the people who watch it can see the greatness of Reog.
18. Lenong
This one is also very famous type of theater in Indonesia. Lenong in here becoming a legend, because it’s very amusing and can also producing new talents for the show. It’s filled with humour and also thick dialect.
19. Ketoprak
No, this is not the food Ketoprak. This one Ketoprak is the theater of Central Java which keeps growing from the year of 1925 til now, starting from Yogyakarta city. Even though some ketoprak will always use comedy elements, but they also don’t forget to tell us about the rich history during the Kingdom Era.
20. Literature and Folk lores, like Timun Mas
Well, Indonesian people also use the stories, fictious stories to tell their kids about moral values. There are so many stories in here, like this Timun Mas. Timun Mas is the story that tells us the greed and the power will be erased by the existence of goodwill and kindness.
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21. Kancil and Buaya
This can tell us about the relationship between a Kancil or mouse deer and also the buaya or crocodiles. Basically, the smart Kancil tricks the greedy crocodiles, so it can cross the river easily without drowning. Well in this life, you could be smart to pass all the obstales in life.
22. Malin Kundang
There’s also a story of Malin Kundang, which tells us how great a mother’s sacrifice for her son. But sadly, things go bad when now succesful son doesn’t even want to recognize his own biological mother. And then, Malin Kundang got a curse from her mother, turning him into stone in a second.
23. Turtles and Rabbits
The story of these two animals is not only famous in Indonesia actually, but also around the world. The thing that we got from the story is, efforts will crush the arrogance. And also believing yourself can bring you to success.
24. Mata Hitam Poetry
W.S Rendra created this powerful poetry named Mata Hitam or Black Eyes. The poetry tells how one individual can miss someone that badly. Even though they’re in only in the past.
25. Aku Berada Kembali Poetry
This critical poerty created by Chairil Anwar, describing how bad the effects of technology for the people who live around a beach. The oil ship making environment worse. And the traditional fishermen are beaten by how fast the modern fishermen work with all that automatic machine.
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The list doesn’t end here yet. There are the other things that you should know about the arts in Indonesia. It’s crazy to show them all, the number is basically infinite. So here we give you the other categories of musical instruments, masks, and also batik motives.
Finally, the list of arts in Indonesia perfectly done in here. As you can see on the information above, you can see that one category even has so many kinds of example. One category can actucally has like hundreds or thousand things.
If you want to come to Indonesia, and looking for the arts in Indonesia for either studying or just fulfill your curiousity, then it’s a perfect choice. So many things to learn in here, some of them even uncovered still. Maybe during your journey, you can find another example of the greats hidden arts.
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