TARI CAKALELE (CAKALELE WAR DANCE)

At first, I was trying hard to represent this theme with positive frame. But it is kind of difficult because this dance is about war, about fight, about anger, about frightening theme. And it is not the only war theme dance in Indonesia, we also have other war dance, Mandau Dance in Kalimantan, Caci Dance from East Nusa Tenggara, and other war dance from Nias, Papua, and Aceh (Prang Sabil Dance), It spread across the archipelago.

So I started to do little internet research on how people tried to describe and explain these dances in positive perspective. It is various and interesting in the way people framing the story of the dance. They come across many philosophies, and it is not necessarily the original one. For example, in one blog, they say, CAKALELE war dance that is often performed in front an honor guest, is a way of saying that the guest should be no worries about his/her/their safety, because the host which is represent by the dancer is good warrior and they will guarantee their safety. In another blog, people interprets  war dance as a dance that show a power and courage of local people that shown by their skill in using weapon, another said that the war dance is about knight spirit and heroism. I think we try hard to make the narrative positively compelling.

But I just thinking, HOW IF, these dances are truly about war, about fight, about blood, about trying to conquer any enemy or new pieces of land, or about being superior from others which is really relevant if we put this matter in to context (time and situation when this dance initially created). This idea challenges the whole concept of my August drawing and narrative project which initially about promoting Indonesia culture through positive interpretation. For example, how if, I hardly think of any good justification of one particular culture, such as cockfighting or bull fighting which has problem to deal with animal rights issue. Is it completely bad cultures? How If I suddenly I got an idea to frame it like this ‘When watching bull fighting or cockfighting, people do interact each other, this event became platform of social interaction of community’? Does it make any different?

So, this makes me realize that human can always interpret the cultures in the different way. It is not necessarily right or wrong. This is about framing, it is about perspective, and this makes our culture more vibrant and continuously alive.