Masks and selves in contemporary Java: The dances of Didik Nini Thowok

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 249-279

  Mrázek, Jan ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ART; CULTURAL IDENTITY; IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION;

ASIA; EURASIA; GREATER SUNDA ISLANDS; JAVA; MALAY ARCHIPELAGO; SOUTHEAST ASIA; SUNDA ISLES;

EID: 33644610180     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463405000160     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. The recent collection of articles on wayang exemplifies this relatively new trend (most strongly the chapters on individual dhalangs), in contrast to scholarship which may use one or more individuals as sources for writing about 'the dhalang'. The shift of focus has been gradual; for example, Clara van Groenendael's study of wayang and Judith Becker's study of gamelan, both published in the 1980s (though Becker's book is based on her 1972 dissertation), show interest in historical change and, to some extent, individual artists (especially in Becker). See Victoria M. Clara van Groenendael, The dalang behind the wayang: The role of the Surakarta and the Yogyakarta dalang in Indonesian-Javanese society (Dordrecht and Cinnaminson, NJ: Foris Publications, 1985)
2. Judith O. Becker, 'Traditional music in modern Java' (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1972)
3. Becker, Traditional music in modern Java: Gamelan in a changing society (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980).
4. However, the works that have first strongly emphasized the traditional performer as an individual, providing an in-depth look at the performer's life and situating the person's work in his or her life experience, are a number of unpublished theses in Indonesian, such as Sumanto's biography of Ki Nartosabdo, defended in 1990: Sumanto, 'Nartosabdo: Kehadirannya dalam dunia pedalangan; Sebuah biografi' (Ph.D. diss., Universitas Gadjah Mada, 1990).
5. Other biographies of specific dhalang include: Edy Sulistyana, 'Ki Ganda Darsana: Kehidupan dan pengaruhnya terhadap perkembangan pakeliran sekarang' (M.A. thesis, Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia, 1996)
6. Suratno et al., 'Warsena Slenk; Kiatnya sebagai dalang laris', unpublished research report (Surakarta: Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia, 1997)
7. Suratno et al., 'Penulisan biografi Nyi Njatatjarita' (Surakarta: Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia, 1993); and
8. A. Komar Abbas and Seno Subro, Ki Manteb 'dalang setan'; Sebuah tantangan (Surakarta: Yayasan Resi Tujuh Satu, 1995).
9. A part of this genre, but specifically relevant here, is Daruni's biography of Didik Nini Thowok: Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik Hadiprayitno di dunia tari: Sebuah biografi (1954-)' (M.A. Thesis, Universitas Gadjah Mada, 1996).
10. In the study of traditional visual art or 'material culture', Janet Hoskins has moved in a similar direction with her notion of 'biographical objects': Janet Hoskins, Biographical objects: How things tell the stories of people's lives (New York: Routledge, 1998).
11. See also Matthew Isaac Cohen, 'Entrusting the scriptures: Wayang kulit, cultural politics, and truly popular art in New Order West Java';
12. Richard Curtis, 'The wong cilik audience and the dhalang entrepreneur';
13. Suratno, 'Ki SLENK (Saya Lebih Enak Nonton Kamu): The tactics of a best-selling puppeteer',
14. and René T. A. Lysloff, 'A tale of two artists: Tradition and innovation in the shadow theater of Banyumas (West Central Java)', in Puppet theater in contemporary Indonesia: New approaches to performance events, ed. Jan Mrázek (Ann Arbor: Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 2002), pp. 109-23 (Cohen), 136-52 (Curtis), 153-68 (Suratno) and 169-78 (Lysloff).
15. This article is not a biography of Didik, nor does it try to explore all the aspects of his artistic activities and his life. For a good biography of Didik's life up to 1996, see Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik'. An interview with Didik by Laurie Ross is forthcoming in The Asian Theater Journal. The book by the journalist Herry Gendut Janarto, Didik Nini Thowok: Menari sampai lahir kembali (Malang: Sava Media, 2005), provides much detail such as names of friends, teachers and collaborators, dates and places of past performances and so on, as well as many photographs from Didik's collection, but is less insightful than Daruni's thesis. Didik's website, www.didikninithowok.info, also provides some information and images. Didik has also produced, and distributes, a DVD with a number of his dances. Check either his website or write to Didik Nini Thowok, Natya Lakshita, Kav. 7, JI. Godean Km 2,8, Yogyakarta 55182, Indonesia, fax (62-274) 586050.
16. Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik', p. 77.
17. Jan Mrázek, 'Javanese wayang kulit in the times of comedy: Clown scenes, innovation, and the performance's being in the present world', Parts One and Two, Indonesia, 68 (1999): 38-128 and 69 (2000): 107-72 respectively.
18. Ibid.
19. Hardja Susilo, 'The personalization of tradition: The case of Sukasman's Wayang Ukur', in Mrázek ed., Puppet theater, pp. 179-88.
20. This and other quotations and references to Didik's statements below, unless otherwise indicated, are from interviews and informal discussions in December 2003, mostly in and around Yogyakarta.
21. Nunuk Sri Rahayu, personal communication.
22. Prince Dhani Nivat, 'The shadow-play as a possible origin of the masked play', The Siam Society; Selected articles from the Siam Society Journal, Vol. 2: 1929-53 (Bangkok: Siam Society, 1954), pp. 177-84.
23. On the Javanese context see Jan Mrázek, Phenomenology of a puppet theatre: Contemplations on the art of Javanese wayang kulit (Leiden: KITLV Press, forthcoming), Chapter 3.
24. I am indebted to Matthew Cohen for this information.
25. A similar form of masked dance exists in Bali, where a single mask dancer performs different characters and (unlike the style in Cirebon) presents a story. Didik has studied dance in Bali, but not this particular form of masked dance; in any case I have not heard him refer to it as one of his major inspirations. Some of the masks that he uses, however, are clearly of Balinese inspiration. For a description and translation of a performance of the Balinese topeng pajegan (a form of masked dance drama in which one dancer represents all the characters, changing masks throughout the performance), see John Emigh, Masked performance: The play of self and other in ritual and theatre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 105-70.
26. P. J. Zoetmoelder, Pantheism and monism in Javanese suluk literature (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995), pp. 266-7; the text is 'Cod. 1796' from the Leiden University Library.
27. When I asked him whether when he first began composing a dwimuka dance he was already thinking about the dance that way, he said, 'No, not yet, but after I performed it, I began to be conscious of it'.
28. While 'mask' is the easiest translation of topeng, the two words do not have exactly the same connotations: While in English 'mask' evokes disguising and 'covering up', and the verb 'to mask' can mean to cover something up so that it is not visible (as with masking tape), in Javanese and Indonesian when topeng is verbalized, it becomes to 'dance with a mask' (Jav. nopeng), 'make masks' (Ind. menopeng), or 'have or wear a mask' (Ind. bertopeng). It does not have a strong connotation of disguise, covering or making invisible; rather, it suggests an active presenting of the mask, the emphasis being more on the mask itself and less on concealment.
29. Ward Keeler, Javanese shadow plays, Javanese selves (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 245, 260.
30. Zoetmoelder, Pantheism and monism, p. 267
31. for some typical examples of puppets and masks used as analogies in Javanese mystical literature, see pp. 239-68.
32. On the tendencies of colonial and postcolonial scholarship to prioritize meanings and written texts over feelings and performances (closely related to the interest in and encouragement of interpretations that make performances 'meaningful', often in a didactic mode), see Hendrik Kleinsmiede, 'Watching wayang with Spinoza: Mentalism and (written) language in nonnative scholarship on wayang as evidence of paradigmatic constraints', in Mrázek ed., Puppet theater, pp. 39-72.
33. Dédé Oetomo, 'Gender and sexual orientation in Indonesia', in Fantasizing the feminine in Indonesia, ed. Laurie J. Sears (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996), pp. 261 ('label') and 267 ('third gender'). This and other publications by Dédé referred to below are also good sources on the perceptions of banci in Java.
34. Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik', p. 20.
35. Benedict R. O'G Anderson, Mythology and the tolerance of the Javanese, 2nd edn (Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1996), p. 43.
36. 'Mas Didik merias pengantin wanita', Femina, 23 June 1981: 27, 94.
37. Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik', p. 39.
38. Ibid., p. 87. The Javanese (Yogyanese) artist Nindityo Adipurnomo has extensively used the Javanese hairbun as symbol and object of obsession in his art. His images include the series 'Portrait of a Javanese man', in which the hairbun replaces a man's face or, in other works, his genitals.
39. While Didik's Chinese heritage is discussed by Daruni, her unpublished thesis would not be readily available to the general public. The information that he has Chinese ancestors will be made more easily available in the biography to be published in Indonesia after this article has been written (Janarto, Didik Nini Thowok), but even that is unlikely to make the information very well known unless it is reproduced in newspaper and magazine articles. In the biography, the Chinese names of Didik and his family are used on a few pages, but Tjoen An is referred to as 'Didik' even in those parts of the book which describe his childhood, although his name was not Didik at the time. Unlike Daruni's thesis, the forthcoming book has no discussion of the problems facing Didik as a 'Chinese'.
40. See, for example, Sumarsam, Gamelan: Cultural interaction and musical development in Central Java (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 83-9.
41. Janarto, Didik Nini Thowok, pp. 16-17.
42. I am using, rather ambiguously, older Malay/Indonesian spelling of the story characters, even though I am not sure that Didik would think about them specifically in this spelling, or in any particular spelling at all. I am grateful to one of the anonymous readers of this article for providing these spellings; I have included in brackets transcriptions, in current Indonesian orthography, that approximate how Didik pronounced the names in the interview.
43. Janarto, Didik Nini Thowok.
44. Benedict Anderson, 'Dari Tjentini sampai ke GAYa Nusantara', preface to Dédé Oetomo, Memberi suara pada yang bisu (Yogyakarta: Galang Press), p. xx.
45. Oetomo, Memberi suara, p. xliv.
46. It seems to me, by the way, that Dédé's use of 'mask' as a figure of speech is more like the English use than Didik's own use, in the sense that for Dédé a mask primarily conceals a reality. I wonder if this way of thinking with the image of a mask comes from the fact that as both Dédé and Anderson emphasize, Dédé's revelation of his 'true face' was inspired by the Western gay movement (when Dédé was a student in America), in which one of the main concerns is the masking (in the sense of concealing) and unmasking of gay identity. In this way of thinking, there is a clear identity, a real face under the mask, and the latter is something fake and unreal. Commenting on this article, Goenawan Mohammad (personal communication) said that he thinks that Didik is gay and that it maybe this aspect of his personality that he 'represses'.
47. Dédé Oetomo, 'Masculinity in Indonesia: Genders, sexualities, and identities in a changing society', in Sears ed., Framing the sexual subject, p. 48. 'Banci' is a word from standard Indonesian vocabulary. 'Bencong' is a common Indonesian slang term, 'wandu' is the Javanese equivalent of banci, and 'waria' is a new Indonesian coinage deriving from the words meaning woman-man (wanita-pria), which some people consider more politically correct.
48. The point about the lack of abnormality is repeatedly made and illustrated with examples from various parts of Indonesia in Dédé, Memberi suara, and also in Anderson's introduction to the book ('Dari Centhini', pp. xi-xxvii). Didik never told me whether he is gay or not and has never raised the issue, nor have I have ever asked him. While Daruni discusses Didik's Chinese and 'woman-like' identities, and these are also apparent in Herry Gendut Janarto's book, I have not seen Didik described as gay in any published work. His gayness thus remains unpublished.
49. Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik', p. 18.
50. For a history of governmental policy towards the performing arts, with attention to issues of construction of ethnic and regional labels, see Philip Yampolsky, 'Forces for change in the regional performing arts of Indonesia', Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-, and Volkenkunde, 151, 4 (1995): 700-25.
51. See Tony Day, 'Wayang kulit and "internal otherness" in East Java', in Mrázek ed., Puppet theater, pp. 189-98, and
52. Jan Mrázek, 'An introduction: One perspective on the variety of perspectives', in the same book, pp. 23-7.
53. As far as government power is concerned, several exemplary studies have focused on the cultural theme park Taman Mini 'Indonesia Indah', where Indonesia is represented through cultural displays as a neatly ordered collection of different-but-same provinces; see especially John Pemberton, On the subject of 'Java' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
54. Claire Holt, Art in Indonesia: Continuities and change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 97.
55. James T. Siegel, Fetish, recognition, revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 9.
56. Ross, interview with Didik (see note 3).
57. Daruni, 'Kehadiran Didik', pp. 80, 77.
58. Ibid., p. 77.
59. Ibid., pp. 71 (Tari Boneka) and 38 (Tari Tengkorak).
60. Consider the focus on the face in portraits, for example; the fact that in puppet theatre traditions where puppets have multiple removable heads, it is the head that gives the puppet its most specific identity; or, of course, the fact that the mask, such a powerful means to transform a person, replaces the face rather than another body part.