Three women gracefully kneaded wet clay into the shape of water jugs, the contours of which resembled the curves of female bodies.
As the craftswomen from Kasongan village in Bantul, Yogyakarta finished their work, some 80 dancers took turns performing fragments of women’s lives on the clay-wet stage.
The scenes were presented on the muddy stage built in front of the mansion of a Javanese prince erected in 1895 during the reign of Sultan Hamengku Buwono VII.
In between the craftswomen and the building, choreographer Setyastuti displayed her dance drama in the Dalem Pugeran area of Yogyakarta.
In the piece, titled Ritus Lampah Lemah (The Earth Walk Rite), she showcased a cycle of women’s struggle for survival, portraying how women, regarded as weak owing to their grace and beauty, possess amazing inherent power.
Her contemporary creation derived the spirit of Bedhaya Gandrung Manis, a classical composition by Sultan Hamengku Buwono VII, and of the craftswomen’s accomplishment and perseverance in Kasongan.
In the dance, the two blended into one.
With the mansion as the background and the craftswomen in the foreground, Ritus Lampah Lemah combined music, dance, theatre and video mapping.
Lemah, meaning earth in Javanese, was represented by the open stage with the wet clay ground.
Lemah, which also means weak, was shown in refined and gracious movements emanating an extraordinary force of attraction.
The softness, charm and elegance of women, symbolized in the dance by long hair and appealing body lines, were depicted to generate power.
“Women’s beauty is related to earth or lemah in Javanese, a connotative and interesting word to talk about women. But are Javanese women so weak that they’re frequently referred to as suwarga nunut neraka katut or merely following their spouses? This is what we wish to reveal in the performance,” said Setyastuti.
To the accompaniment of gamelan, wind instruments and DJ music, women’s roles were described one by one – from pregnancy, delivery, child care and education, performing family and household duties to maintaining social relations.
“All of the roles show the superiority of so-called weak women. Today women have the same rights as men, including in jobs,” she says.
Citing an example, she pointed to the women in Kasongan village. For them, beauty isn’t just defined by shining hair, fair skin and other such appearances.
Although they get dipped in mud, they retain their charm in handling their creative job for art as well as for the fulfillment of family needs.
Artist Djaduk Ferianto, who has a role as a resource person in this dance drama, said that despite the show’s quality, he felt pleased with the performance as it showed appreciation and support for contemporary art by the Yogyakarta regional administration.
“This indicates that art is no longer seen with disfavor by cultural authorities, which is also my experience in the annual Ngayogjazz musical event,” he said.
Yogyakarta State University lecturer Suminto A. Sayuti was happy to see contemporary art getting the space within Yogyakarta’s cultural arena.
“This project is actually intended to announce that Yogyakarta is not, or not always, synonymous with classical art. It is an open site and place where different artistic and esthetic ideologies meet, but the two eventually join hands to bring about Yogyakarta’s character,” he said.
Ritus Lampah Lemah established that, in this case, Javanese women play crucial roles in their families and in society.
The women’s presence is like earth or soil that provides water resources and enables the growth of living organisms, where humans also maintain their survival – never just being relegated to secondary rank or merely considered konco wingking (lesser partners) as Javanese men have so long held.
