Beksan Lawung Agung dance

The grandest dance, Beksan Lawung, is a series of lance ( lawung) fights between champions, on which their supporters make bets. It has two forms: Lawung Ageng ("Great Lawung", also known as Trunajaya, after the corps of soldiers who used to perform it), is danced in the "strong" male modes, while Lawung Alit (Small Lawung) is done in the "gentle" male modes. These dances are often performed now by sixteen men, although at the end of the nineteenth a Dutch visitor witnessed a "Great" Lawung with forty two dancers. This dance provides the best opportunity for male dancers to demonstrate the spirit of Yogyakarta's founding spirit, and was allegedly invented by the first sultan. This spirit is expressed in the powerful music and forcefully muscular movement. Before Indonesian independence it was performed at royal marriages in the kraton, and could be performed in the Prime Minister's Residence to represent the sultan in his absence. Lawung includes a certain amount of dialogue and joking as the dancers make their bets on the fight, and evokes the macho ethos of the kraton barracks.

Thanks to Ayu Dwi for this cultural card from Indonesia and the

beautiful stamp of Sangiran, Indonesia's Early Man site.

Received: 29 October 2014