Dance as Cultural Practice vs. Religious Piety: Acehnese Dance in Banda Aceh and Yogyakarta

Abstract

This article examines contrasting strategies that the practitioners of Acehnese dance in two Indonesian cities, Yogyakarta and Banda Aceh, sagely create to legitimize their participation in the arts in today's increasingly conservative religious climate in Indonesia. Islam in Yogyakarta has drifted away from a historically syncretic, localized form and toward a more conservative form. This shift has impacted Yogyakarta's Muslim dancers’ views on which kind of arts they deem appropriate to take part in. In particular, as they seek to maintain their religious identity and practice religious principles in order to be connected to a modern, globalized Islam, they choose to leave a local dance tradition for Acehnese dance, a tradition that originated in a province three thousand kilometers away. In Banda Aceh, the post-tsunami period (2004–present) sees religious leaders’ contestations toward the performing arts becoming part of the province's administrative system under sharia law, posing new challenges and risks.

Introduction

Why do they all want to ask us about the relationship between Acehnese arts and religion? Actually, there are no Islamic aspects in the dance itself. Yes, the song lyrics do pronounce the names of Allah and Prophet Muhammad, but these songs have been simply passed down for generations. We don't sing them particularly as a religious practice.—Acehnese dancers on tour in New England, February 2015¹

While we do not quite understand Acehnese, we can hear that the lyrics of the songs mention the name of Prophet Muhammad as well as Islamic greetings. Also, dances which are in the sitting position, remind us of dhikr. Through practicing Acehnese performing arts, we deepen our piety and feel closer to God.—Muhammad, Yogyakarta, May 2016

The quotations above illustrate contrasting meanings of Acehnese music and dance to two different sets of practitioners in Indonesia. The Acehnese practitioners deny that their practice of music and dance is a vehicle to express their religiosity; instead, they emphasize the tradition and cultural aspects imbedded in their practice. In contrast, Yogyanese practitioners view Acehnese music and dance as a means to deepen their Islamic faith. The religious meanings they observe here lead them to choose Aceh's performing arts over their own Javanese performing arts.

In this article, I examine how practitioners of Acehnese music and dance in the two Indonesian cities of Banda Aceh and Yogyakarta use contrasting strategies to legitimize their own participation in the performing arts. I illustrate that these strategies are necessitated through recent changes in the sociocultural and religious climate in Indonesia, particularly in these two cities. More specifically, Islam in Yogyakarta has drifted away from a historically syncretic, localized form and toward a more conservative form. This shift has impacted Yogyakarta's Muslim youth's views on what kind of arts they deem appropriate to take part in, especially as these practitioners seek to maintain their religious identity and practice religious principles to be connected to a modern, reformist, and global Islam. In Banda Aceh, the post-tsunami period (2004–present) sees religious leaders’ contestations toward the performing arts becoming part of the province's administrative system, posing new challenges and risks that performing arts practitioners face today. To navigate through this complex sociocultural, political, and religious landscape, these Acehnese practitioners respond creatively and strategize wisely.

Situating This Study: Women's Performing Arts, Islam, and Indonesia

This article is a case study on discourses about (a) the rapidly changing sociocultural and religious climate in Indonesia; (b) the impact of the global Islamic revival on the performing arts; and (c) women's cultural and artistic expressions in the context of Muslim society. Recent shifts in religious climate have resulted in certain arts flourishing as others are prohibited in Islamic societies (Baily 2001; Raudvere 2002; Weintraub 2008). Indonesia's performing arts, in particular, have seen many recent evolutions in reaction to social, religious, and political demands (Lindsay 1995; Harnish 2006; Sunardi 2011; Yampolsky 1995). In this article, I observe how dancers in the Yogyakarta and Aceh regions negotiate their practices under the changing regulations and authority of local Islamic organizations and their own religious morality today.

Furthermore, I expand upon literature that examines women's expressions of piety within Muslim contexts. Such discourses have shown how women's participation in Islamic practices (e.g., mosque attendance and Quranic arts) has been in constant flux over the past few decades in many parts of the world (Furseth 2011; Mahmood 2005; Rasmussen 2010). Several scholars have discussed that Indonesian women have been active participants in practicing piety and engaging in discourses about morality, Islamic identity, education, and gender equality, especially in the two decades since the end of President Suharto's regime (Harvey 2011; Smith-Hefner 2019; Srimulyani 2011; Zamhari 2011). Within these unique political circumstances, I analyze how the rise of conservative Islam in Indonesia, particularly in Banda Aceh and Yogyakarta, has impacted women's engagement in the performing arts.

Scholarly research on Aceh's performing arts was limited until the 2000s, largely due to the tense relationship between the province of Aceh and the Indonesian central government. Especially in the field of ethnomusicology and in academic publications, an Australian ethnomusicologist, Margaret Kartomi, has single-handedly introduced Acehnese performing arts over the preceding decades (Kartomi 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014). Since the 2005 resolution of the political conflict, more scholars have written about the historical construction of Acehnese identity as an Islamic state, the ulama's changing position in Acehnese society, and the effects of sharia on the everyday lives of Muslims (Aspinall 2009; Reid 2006; Kloos 2018). More generally, many scholarly works have examined Indonesian Islam's past and present political environments, changes in state ideology, and the impact of the global Islamic revival (Baswedan 2004; Hefner 2000; Hosen 2005; van Bruinessen 2013). I aim to contribute to these discourses by contextualizing my research on Acehnese performing arts within the contemporary sociocultural conditions the practitioners in Yogyakarta and Banda Aceh experience today.

Sociocultural, Historical, and Religious Landscape

Banda Aceh

Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, has been historically a bustling city of trade, connecting traders from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Banda Aceh is also known as the verandah of Mecca, as it was the port of departure for Muslim Southeast Asians making pilgrimage to Mecca. At the height of its flourishing in the seventeenth century under Sultan Iskandar Muda, Banda Aceh was known as an Islamic center of Southeast Asia, attracting many Muslim scholars and leaders (Kloos 2018). Furthermore, Banda Aceh has long self-identified as part of the Muslim network, connecting Aceh to the Mughal and Ottoman Empires, rather than belonging to today's Indonesian archipelago (Riddell 2006). However, since the end of World War II, when Indonesia was formed as a nation-state with a secular constitution, Aceh has been occupied in an ideological conflict with the central government, which broke its original promise to establish Islamic religious principles as the backbone of the newly minted nation's constitution (Aspinall 2009). This escalated in the 1970s, due to the unfair share of profit from Aceh's natural resources, and the separatist movement Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), which rose up in the province during the same time (Miller 2006).

Photo 1. Locations of Banda Aceh and Yogyakarta. Image by the author.

In 2004, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami swept away much of Banda Aceh. The disaster led to vast socioreligious and political change in the region. First, the separatist movement surrendered, and the central government renewed the political and cultural autonomy of Aceh, expanding the province's right to practice partial sharia law, along with the creation of sharia courts and sharia police (Miller 2006). Furthermore, Acehnese society developed a sense of religious reawakening in the post-tsunami period. In making sense of the sudden and great loss of life, the Acehnese came to view the natural disaster as a punishment from Allah for straying from Muslim ways of living (Ishiguro 2019a; Kloos 2018). Today, Islam is not only applied to religious practices of individuals, but also as part of the administrative and legal systems in the Aceh province.

Indonesians describe the form of Islam practiced in Aceh as kuat (strong). After living in five Indonesian cities, I began to understand what a strong Islamic practice means in the everyday lives of the Acehnese. Jumatan is a Friday midday prayer, which requires Acehnese men to attend masjid. In Banda Aceh, about thirty minutes before jumatan, every major road empties and shops are closed. Instead, masjid are packed with men clad in sarong. The omnipresence of Islam stimulates not only the visual senses but also the auditory senses: layers and layers of the sounds of azan and shalawat converge from all angles five times a day, a profound experience, even for a non-Muslim person such as myself. The sholat, one of the five pillars of Islam that occurs five times daily, is a significant part of the lives of the Acehnese. Furthermore, they use the names of sholat to express a sense of time. For example, my friend would say, “Let's meet after zuhur tomorrow for a practice session.” This anecdote illustrates how deeply Islamic practices are integrated into the everyday lives of the Acehnese.

Photo 2. Masjid Baiturrahman, the main mosque in the city of Banda Aceh. Photograph by the author. Banda Aceh, December 2013.

Photo 3. Mosque in a Central Javanese architectural style. Photograph by Darsono, Yogyakarta, December 2015.

Yogyakarta

The second site of my research is Yogyakarta. It is one of the Javanese court cities which played a significant role in supporting Javanese traditional arts, and Yogyakarta's people take pride in their cultural practices and historical roots (Hughes-Freeland 2011). Yogyakarta's Islamic practices have been historically syncretic. Islam entered Java through family ties with powerful merchants in the northern coast, which engaged with the greater Indian Ocean realm through sea trades. By the seventeenth century, Islam had penetrated the interior of central Java, where Hindu-Buddhist cultures had previously been deeply rooted (Koentjaraningrat 1990). The collapse of Majapahit, Java's last Hindu-Buddhist kingdom, to the Demak Islamic Sultanate in the sixteenth century sped up the progress of conversion among the Javanese population (Smith-Hefner 2019). Today, kraton, where the Sultan resides, is the mystical center, filled with symbolism that expresses syncretic notions of the relationship between people, Islam, and Javanese traditions (Woodward 1991). Java's syncretic type of Islam is known as Agami Jawi, in which Hindu-Buddhist beliefs as well as indigenous animism and adat (traditional customs, including rituals, ancestral worship, ceremonies, literatures, and practices surrounding mysticism, folk beliefs, and royal courts) are reinterpreted and integrated in varieties of ways into an Islamic frame of reference (Hughes-Freeland 2008; Koentjaraningrat 1990; Smith-Hefner 2019).

Although Agami Jawi became rooted deeply in Yogyakarta, modern-reformist Islam also attained a foothold in the late nineteenth century. Muhammadiyah, the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, was heavily influenced by the ideas of reformist Muhammad Abduh, an Egyptian scholar of Islamic modernism (Koentjaraningrat 1990). Established in 1912 in Yogyakarta with the goal of promoting modern Islamic reform, Muhammadiyah integrated modern technologies into their activities of dissemination and developed an extensive network through schools and associations. Since the era of Reformasi (1998–present), Muhammadiyah has had both liberal progressive members and conservative fundamentalist members.² However, Martin van Bruinessen (2011) argues that in recent decades, the balance between the two parties within Muhammadiyah has shifted toward conservative fundamentalism. Muhammadiyah, among various coalitions of Muslim university students of Indonesia, such as Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (HMI; Association of Muslim University Students), Ikatan Mahasiswa Muhammadiyah (IMM; League of Muhammadiyah University Students), and Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Muslim Indonesia (KAMMI; United Action of Indonesian Muslim Students), has put strong emphasis on education and ethics standards of young Muslims.³ Therefore, today's reformist Islam has significantly impacted the social and religious lives of the youth—the main practicing bodies of Acehnese dance in this city.

Acehnese Music and Dance

In comparison to Central Javanese court dance and gamelan music, which have received significant attention because they were frequently performed on global stages in past decades, Acehnese music and dance are much less well-known outside of Aceh. Below is a brief introduction to Acehnese music and dance.

There are three signature elements in traditional Acehnese music and dance. First, Acehnese music and dance commonly involve group performances, and the group dynamic is highly woven into artistic practice. For example, an ensemble of rapai Acehnese frame drum employs an intricate interlocking style of strokes. This interlocking style layers complex rhythms among the whole ensemble, making the sound of rapai ensembles elaborate and unique. This complexity carries over to a number of dances that take advantage of the multiplicity of bodies. The movements of each individual dancer, particularly in sitting dances, such as ratoeh duek and rateb meuseukat, are quite simple, as sitting dance typically involve only upper torso movements, including the use of hands, shoulders, heads, and chest, while the dancers sit on their heels. However, when coordinated in quick tempi with several dancing bodies all sitting in one line, the dance becomes mesmerizing, bearing visual complexities. Finally, as many dance forms in Aceh use body percussion (by clapping hands and hitting thighs, chests, and shoulders with hands), having a group of dancers is essential to creating a remarkable auditory effect. Tightly sitting next to one another, moving together in a meticulously synchronized and coordinated choreography, and creating what sounds like sounds of crashing waves with their body percussions, the dancers become a single entity that is much more profound than a group of individual dancers.

Second, Acehnese music and dance is gendered, meaning that, although both male and female are involved in the arts, certain repertoires are assigned to a specific gender. For example, a standing dance, seudati, is considered a dance form exclusively appropriate for male practitioners as it involves quick and aggressive movements and slapping the abdomen with force. The female counterpart to this standing dance is laweut, which employs softer and slower movements and is considered more appropriate for female expressions. Moreover, in laweut, female dancers slap their thighs instead of abdomens as it is believed that slapping the area of the lower torso would damage female reproductive organs. Furthermore, there are, in some exceptional cases, sitting dance repertoires, such as ratoeh duek, which are performed by both male and female practitioners. However, male and female practitioners never practice ratoeh duek together, despite the fact that they share most of the movements. Although men and women do not dance together in order to avoid any physical contact, they may share the stage together. In today's performing arts scenes, sanggar in Aceh are filled with young women and men, most of them being college students.⁴

The third signature element in traditional Acehnese music and dance is its engagement with Islam. Margaret Kartomi coined the term “dance-song” to describe the dynamic in these Acehnese repertoires (Kartomi 2011) because dancers often act as musicians, singing the accompaniment songs as well as creating rhythmic elements through body percussion throughout the choreography. A medley of short songs, which accompany dances, typically originate in shalawat (songs in praise of the Prophet Muhammad) and traditional Acehnese songs. Kartomi discusses that Aceh's traditional dance and songs practiced today are believed to have developed from localized forms of dakwah and dhikr (2012). Dakwah refers to the act of proselytization of Islam, which frequently employs the performing arts as a method to spread religious teachings. The purpose of dhikr is spiritual enrichment and deepening of piety, which brings worshippers closer to Allah. Having its roots in Sufi practices, dhikr uses repeated movements, chanting the names of Allah, and breathing techniques to bring practitioners to a meditative mental state. Today, Acehnese music and dance with religious texts, including the confession of faith, are considered “art with Islamic themes”; when secular texts are used in Acehnese music and dance, it is considered “art with Islamic flavor” (Kartomi 2011).

Photo 4. Bur'am, an ensemble of rapai frame drum from Banda Aceh. Rapai is commonly played in a group, allowing a complex interlocking style of strokes among the musicians. Photograph by the author. Banda Aceh, September 2015.

Photo 5. One of the Acehnese sitting dances, ratoeh duek, is performed by a group of dancers. Photograph by Sandy Aldieri, Perceptions Photography, courtesy of the Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, March 2015.

Popularization of Acehnese Music and Dance in Yogyakarta

Although the circulation of the Acehnese performing arts among young Yogyanese students is a relatively new scene, Yogyakarta has seen an Acehnese community in the city for several decades. Marzuki Hasan, a professor of performing arts specializing in Acehnese music and dance at the Institute Kesenian Jakarta (Art Institute of Jakarta), recalled that during his graduate studies at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta in the 1960s, there was a group of Acehnese dancers who gathered regularly to practice seudati (Marzuki Hasan, personal communication, January 2016). As Acehnese people meurantau, a tradition in which men leave home to earn a living and send resources to their families, it is not surprising to find an Acehnese population in Yogyakarta that goes back some generations. There are a number of Asrama Aceh, housing complexes where Acehnese people gather, in many parts of Yogyakarta. Recently, several Acehnese restaurants have popped up in the city; they are not only enjoyed by the local Acehnese population, but have also attracted the Yogyanese youth.

Two Sanggar in Yogyakarta: Rampoe UGM and Saka UGM

In this section, I introduce two Yogyanese sanggar (art communities), Rampoe UGM and Sanggar Kesenian Aceh UGM (known as Saka), in order to provide an ethnographic account of how Acehnese performing arts are practiced in Yogyakarta today.

Rampoe UGM

Rampoe UGM was founded in 2009 by a group of Acehnese students who majored in Arabic literature at UGM. At the time of its founding, Rampoe UGM consisted of both Acehnese and non-Acehnese students who got together after class to casually practice dance. The Acehnese members knew several sitting dances such as saman gayo and likok pulo. In 2010, Rampoe UGM was officially recognized by UGM as a sanggar, allowing them to apply for financial supports from the university (Rampoe UGM, personal communication with author, May–July 2016). Rampoe UGM has grown in membership over the last decade. In 2016, over 200 students applied to join the group each year, and the membership was around 150. Although a high percentage of members are from Central Java, there is also a significant portion of members from south Sumatra and East Java.

Routine practices are held twice per week in a large hallway; female and male members share the practice time and space, but practice separately. There is no Acehnese practitioner who teaches the material and technique. Rather, senior members who have been practicing music and dance teach younger students. One of the practice sessions I attended involved about sixty female members who made two lines facing each other to practice ratoeh duek. The session was supervised by four older members who sat in between the two lines to demonstrate the movements. Although those who teach music and dance are mostly non-Acehnese who learned Acehnese performing arts in Yogyakarta, there was one Acehnese man who observed their practice sessions and offered last-minute tune-ups before Rampoe UGM's performances. Rampoe UGM also hold social events in order to create a sense of community among the members. During the month of Ramadhan, members periodically meet for breaking of the fast and hold Halal-bin-Halal, gatherings at which they share meals together. Rampoe UGM also has an outreach program for teaching Acehnese dance to local K–12 schools.

Photo 6. A practice scene from Rampoe UGM. Female dance practitioners who are learning the choreography form two lines while the senior dancers sit in front to demonstrate the movements, with one senior male musician who accompanies by playing the rapai and singing. Photograph by the author. Yogyakarta, May 2016.

Photo 7. A practice scene from Rampoe UGM. Two groups of male dancers practice saman dance from Gayo Lues, Aceh province. One senior member faces and teaches the younger dancers. Photograph by the author. Yogyakarta, July 2016.

Saka

Saka UGM was founded in 2011 by three students majoring in Arabic literature in the Department of Cultural Studies. Two of these students were originally from Aceh and moved to Yogyakarta to attend UGM. Annually, the sanggar accepts fifty new members and there are about two hundred members in the sanggar, consisting of current students and alumni. Today, a very small percentage of the members are from Aceh (Evita and Aulia, personal communication with author, July 2016). The activities at Saka, weekly routine practices and social events, are similar to Rampoe UGM. However, female and male members have separate practice times. It is only at social events and performances that male and female members interact with one another. At performances, Saka frequently invites Acehnese musicians to accompany their dances at events. In doing so, Saka provides a monetary opportunity for local Acehnese practitioners. Saka performs for events such as the opening of seminars, conferences, competitions, and events on campus at UGM, another aspect shared by both Rampoe UGM and Saka.

In prior research (Ishiguro 2019b) I examined the explosive popularization of ratoeh jaroe, a new dance form based on traditional Acehnese sitting dances in Jakarta, the capital of the nation. Ratoeh jaroe began to receive attention in Jakarta in 2005 after Aceh experienced a devastating natural disaster that took many lives in coastal Aceh. Since then, its growing popularity has not declined until today, resulting in a spectacular performance of ratoeh jaroe by 1,600 high school dancers at the opening ceremony of Asian Games in 2018 in Jakarta. Practitioners of ratoeh jaroe were mostly high school students and almost always exclusively female. At this location, there was a network of ethnically Acehnese dance teachers who migrated from Banda Aceh to Jakarta to teach this popular form of Acehnese dance. These Acehnese teachers dominated the ratoeh jaroe scene as the authorities of the dance form, organizers and judges of competitions, creators of new movements and songs, and teachers to the large population of high school girls.

In Yogyakarta, however, the conditions are different: the majority of Acehnese music and dance practitioners are college students, consisting of both women and men. Although there is a small number of ethnically Acehnese art practitioners who are in Yogyakarta to further their education in the graduate program at the Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) and other universities, at the time of my fieldwork in 2016 they did not form a network of Acehnese teachers as I saw in Jakarta. Rather, those who run the scene in Yogyakarta are non-Acehnese college students who have been involved in Acehnese music and dance for a handful of years. In particular, as the sanggar grew in their scale and membership, ethnically Acehnese practitioners’ involvement was minimized to last-minute brushups before competitions. I met with one of the Acehnese students at ISI who had been an active musician at a sanggar in Banda Aceh, prior to his arrival at Yogyakarta. He commented on how the Yogyanese sanggar have their own way of operating their groups, different from what he was used to in Banda Aceh. Although he was often asked to play for performances by these sanggar, his expertise and authority was not sought out by the Yogyanese practitioners in the ways that he would have experienced in Jakarta (Rudi Asman, personal communication with the author, May 2016).

Voices from the Field

Interviews with dancers and musicians from these sanggar at Yogyakarta revealed intriguing individual and collective experiences of practicing Acehnese arts—art forms of ethnic Others. Here, I present snapshots of the five practitioners to articulate their insights about the engagement between Islam and their artistic endeavors, and how they navigate today's changing religious landscape in Yogyakarta. Three specific issues I discuss here are (a) expressions of religious identities through Acehnese music and dance, (b) arts as a vehicle of deepening piety, and (c) traditional Javanese mysticism versus modern-reformist Islam.

Religious Identity through Acehnese Music and Dance

The use of head covers by Muslim women in recent decades has been a hotbed of discussion in both Muslim and non-Muslim societies, as well as in academia (Ahmed 2011; Brenner 1996; Furseth 2011; Jansen 1998; MacLeod 1992; Smith-Hefner 2007). The central debate has been on what the head cover means to Muslim women. The discourse is complex: some argue that it frees Muslim women from the unsolicited male gaze, increases women's mobility and opportunities to engage with public life, and allows women to express modernity outside of Western terms. In Yogyakarta's Acehnese music and dance community, young female dancers contribute to this global discourse on using head covers as part of their religious identity.

Evita and Yuna from Saka UGM shared stories regarding their use of head covers and experiences in dance. Native of Jakarta, they studied Javanese dance since they were in elementary school and had intended to continue studying it. However, when they signed up for an audition at a Javanese dance sanggar at their university, the members of the sanggar asked a daunting question: Are you willing to take off your head cover for rehearsals and performances? Both commented that taking off the head cover in public as they became older began to feel problematic, causing them to leave Javanese dance. In particular, Evita says of her experience, “First, I just enrolled in Javanese dance to see how I feel [about practicing without wearing the jilbab (head cover)].… But, my goodness, it broke my heart [to take off my jilbab]! Then, I saw a poster of Acehnese dance group and women were wearing jilbab. So, I thought, let's try this [Acehnese dance]” (Evita and Yuna, personal communication, July 2016).

In Acehnese dance, covering female dancers’ hair is required, as it serves as a way to respect Aceh's culture and history that are tightly intertwined with Islam. In both traditional and contemporary dance, female dancers cover their skin and the curves of their bodies by wearing loose, long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and a songket (a piece of cloth that goes around their lower bodies, hitting below the knees). On the other hand, Javanese court dance costumes are much more revealing of women's body lines and skin. Depending on the dance forms and their various origins, the costumes only use a cloth or a velvet jerkin to cover the torso, leaving dancers’ arms and, sometimes, shoulders completely revealed. Their hair is typically up, baring much of the neckline. In my personal experience of performing Javanese court dance after several months of practicing Acehnese dance in full costumes, I felt much more exposed in the former.

In several Javanese regions, I have seen young female dancers use clever techniques to lessen the exposure of their skin in Javanese court dance. Some used a thin beige colored bodysuit under the breast cloth to cover their arms and chests completely. Some also used black cloth to cover their hair under the elaborate head ornamentation. However, in the stories from Evita and Yuna, it appears that the Yogyanese sanggar placed emphasis on the tradition of court practice above Islamic religious principles, as they were asked to remove their head cover while dancing or to leave the sanggar. Therefore, Evita and Yuna were forced to choose between their Muslim identity and Javanese court dance, which they had been studying for years.

Movements in Javanese dance also created hesitations among female dancers. Some signature movements in the Javanese dance accentuates contortions. In particular, with a movement called nyalang that is typically used to close a section of sacred bedhyaya dance, dancers stretch their upper bodies extensively and float over the floor in a circular motion while extending their right hands horizontally and keeping the left hands by their faces. In another movement, called mlaku telu, which frequently appears in gambyong dance, female dancers hold and lift up the edge of their sarong (a long cloth that covers their legs, similar to a skirt) as they take steps, revealing their ankles. Indah, a member of Rampoe UGM, compares such movements with Acehnese dance: “The movements in Acehnese dance are made comfortable for [Muslim] women … there is no stretching of torso or bending over extensively in Acehnese dance” (Indah, personal communication, July 2016). Movements in Acehnese dance tend to be sharp, firm, and quick, without much fluidity or extension of limbs, neck, or torso—some of the characteristics in Javanese court dance and modern dance that Indah had experience practicing in the past. Having entered her early twenties—generally considered marrying age in Javanese society—Indah became aware of the relationship between female bodies, public display, and Islamic principles. Once she entered adulthood, those same movements became a source of worry, as she recognized them as unfit for Muslim women.

Photo 8. A photo of a Javanese court dance movement, called nyalang, in which female dancers extensively contort their torsos, floating over the floor in a circular motion while extending their right hand horizontally. Photograph by Sonia Pangesti Lambangsari and Muhammad Nur Aziz. Surakarta, May 2022.

Photo 9. A photo of a Javanese court dance movement, called mlaku telu, in which a female dancer holds and lifts up the edge of her sarong as she takes steps, revealing her ankles and possibly calves. Photograph by Sonia Pangesti Lambangsari and Muhammad Nur Aziz. Surakarta, May 2022.

The use of head covers in Acehnese dance and the nature of Acehnese dance vocabularies give the impression of Acehnese dance as a form appropriate for Muslim female dancers. Such Muslim identities found in Acehnese dance offer young Yogyanese female dancers—who otherwise would have to stop dancing altogether—opportunities to stay engaged in performing arts. Having conducted over one hundred interviews with university students in Yogyakarta, anthropologist Nancy Smith-Hefner draws a clear picture of these young female dancers’ sentiments: “No matter what their institutional affiliation or background, all voiced a similar and anxious concern: how to navigate Yogyakarta's increasingly cosmopolitan social scene with its expanded opportunities, amusements and temptations …” (2018, 16). By finding elements in Acehnese dance that are compatible with their chosen Islamic principles, and that protect them from criticism based on social and religious expectations, young female dancers in Yogyakarta continue to express themselves through Acehnese performing arts.

Photo 10. A performance of Golek Montro, one of the Central Javanese court dance repertoires from the Mangkunegaran palace. The female dancers wear a typical costume for golek, which exposes arms, neckline, hair, and the general body line. Photograph by the author. Surakarta, August 2017.

Photo 11. A typical costume for Acehnese female dance. The dancers’ bodies are covered by long sleeves, long pants, a songket (long skirt), and elaborate head cover, exposing only their hands, feet, and faces to the audience. Photograph by the author. Banda Aceh, July 2015.

Acehnese Performing Arts as a Vehicle for Deepening Piety

Several scholars have written about the performing arts as a way to deepen one's experience in religion (Catlin-Jairazbhoy 2004; During 1997; Kapchan 2009; Kartomi 2010; Mottahedeh 2005; Shannon 2003). Some have further explored how the performing arts’ connections to religion have elevated their prestige, public acceptance, and flourish (Danielson 1997; Mack 2004; Sumarsam 2011; Sunardi 2015). Such connections are seen in how Muhammad and Latif, two male members from Rampoe UGM, experienced their practice of Acehnese music. Not only do they recognize Islamic greetings and religious formulae in the lyrics of Acehnese songs, but more importantly, Muhammad and Latif identify Acehnese music as a method through which they deepen their faith and religious practices.

Muhammad, a native of Jambi, Sumatra, commented on the complete divorce between his religious identity and popular forms of music today. Although wishing to explore his love for music, he faced the dilemma of finding a genre of music that he felt was meaningful and identifiable (Muhammad, personal communication, May 2016). Music that is popular among youth today—Indonesian and Western pop songs—are commonly about young love or carelessly searching for fun, which contradicts Muhammad's wish to live as an observant Muslim. On the other hand, in the lyrics of Acehnese songs, he recognizes Islamic phrases integrated with traditional values.

For example, an Acehnese song, Saleum, is sung in the beginning of some of the sitting dances:

Assalaimualaikum jame baro trok (Greetings to all the guests who have arrived)

Tamong tamong jak piyoh ateuh tika (Please enter and sit comfortably on tikar mats)

Kareuna saleum Nabi kheun sunah (Because this is the way the prophet taught us)

Jaroe tame umat tanda mulia (To express the prosperity of our Muslim umat)

For non-Acehnese Indonesians, the Acehnese words in the lyrics above would not make much sense. However, hearing commonly understood Islamic or Arabic phrases (in bold), such as Assalaimualaikum (may peace be upon you), saleum (peace and blessing), Nabi (prophet), and sunah (the way of prophet Muhammad) resonates deeply with their Muslim faith. Therefore, when taken together with the knowledge of strong ties between Aceh and Islam, the practice of Acehnese performing arts becomes a vehicle to remind themselves about Allah. Latif, a native of Surakarta, Central Java, whose parents frequently took him to performances of wayang kulit and gamelan, discussed how he recognized much more intimate engagements between Islam and lyrics in Acehnese songs than what he heard in traditional music from Central Java (Latif, personal communication with the author, May 2016). In the search for art practices that can become an extension of their religious experience, Muhammad and Latif therefore chose Acehnese music and dance over other popular art forms.

In fact, such impacts of Acehnese arts on the religious lives of arts practitioners extends even to the larger Muslim community of the sanggar. One Rampoe UGM rehearsal I visited was held between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. and included two prayer times, Magrib and Isya, during the practice session. Magrib, which takes place at sunset, is especially time sensitive, as it allows for only a brief period to pray. As I observed, the practice session did not completely stop for Magrib; however, the members formed small groups to leave for prayer at a nearby musholla, a place used for praying, at different times. A number of Rampoe members commented that since joining this sanggar, their own religious practices had become stronger and more consistent. Female practitioners began to wear jilbab more regularly outside of the practice sessions. Feeling the sense of umat (Muslim community) among the sanggar members, more members began to participate regularly in Magrib prayers, extending their habit of praying to outside the practice sessions (Latif, personal communication, May 2016). Here, it is evident that Muslim practitioners find Acehnese music and dance to be not only in line with their religious principles, but also able to promote Islamic values and practices even further. They are able to utilize the arts as a way of engaging with fellow practitioners, thus strengthening their connection to their religion and engendering a sense of Muslim community.

Contesting Javanese Mysticism, Embracing Modern Islam, and Connecting to the World Outside Indonesia

A handful of writings on Javanese music and dance have discussed the connection between Javanese mysticism and the arts (Hughes-Freeland 2008, 2011; Sears 1989; Walton 2007; Suharti 2015; Sunardi 2015). Christina Sunardi (2015) examined the magnetic spiritual power that females possess and embody through their dances in East Java. Here, women's dance practices are believed to bring about prosperities, good harvest, and fertility. Felicia Hughes-Freeland (2011) illustrated the deep history behind local mythologies—particularly beliefs about the sacred power endorsed in the Bedhaya-Srimpi dance repertoire of the Solonese and Yogyanese courts. Considered the property of the courts’ sultan, Bedhaya-Srimpi repertoires are symbols, vehicles, and embodiments of mystical power. They carry on a lineage of prestige, of the court's cosmological significance, and even of political strategy to legitimize the governing power of the sultan over central Javanese people and lands.

David Harnish and Anne Rasmussen (2011) further discuss the historical and contemporary practice of mysticism in Java as a result of Sufi Islam. An example of Islam's syncretic marriage of mysticism with Hindu-Buddhist and Tantric practices, Sekaten sets of gamelan instruments are played as an act of dakwah for maulid (the observance of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday). Considered sacred, they are given offerings of flowers, food, holy water, and mantra each year. Such acts of worship for heirlooms are considered an ancient, mystical, and highly localized practice, which are not necessarily in accordance with the more conservative, global, and reformist Islamic views of Indonesia today.

The final vignette comes from Aulia, who participated in an international folk arts festival as a member of Rampoe UGM, and highlights how Acehnese dance had engaged her with the global discourses about Islam. Expanding their horizons beyond Yogyakarta—and in doing so, connecting to the modern world—is something that many Indonesian youth seek. In works by Suzanne Brenner (1996) and Nancy Smith-Hefner (2007), we see how female university students in Yogyakarta sought after expressions of modernity for Muslim women. For instance, veiling signified transformation of self, renewal of society through commitment to an Islamic future, and the vision of an alternative modernity not based on Western models. In Java, it is a practice different from those of their parents; today's youth consider their predecessors’ customs to have resulted from their lack of education and modern worldview. Even though historically reinterpreted in an Islamic framework, some of the customary Javanese practices are considered, by the younger generations of Muslims in Yogyakarta, polytheistic and heretical inventions. In contrast, today, Acehnese dance practice—which both requires female dancers to veil and offers them a ticket to engage with the world—creates opportunities for young women to embrace their self-determined kind of modern and global Islam.

Furthermore, Yogyanese practitioners recognize Aceh as connected with a historical Muslim network of the world. Not only that, but in Yogyakarta there currently exists the impression that Acehnese Islamic practices come more directly from the “center,” the origin point, of Islam—the Middle East. In contrast, Javanese court dance practice, which is tightly connected to the ancient practice of mysticism and feudalism of the past, appears to be archaic and local—the opposite of the modern, worldly Islamic practices today's youth conforms to. Finally, some recent scandals, issues surrounding succession, and corruption involving the courts have caused society to lose trust in formerly prestigious rulers, and instead portray them as out of touch with modern times.⁵

Within this framework of discourses involving local versus global, and traditional-syncretic versus modern-reformist Islam, Aulia and her fellow dancers, performing on an international stage, experienced something far more powerful than the merely physical experience of leaving Indonesia. At a folk dance festival in Belgium, the audience saw the dancers as a Muslim dance group wearing head covers and with a religious mission. Instead of reacting to what could have been discriminatory comments about their dance practices and attire—missionaristic rather than artistic—they transformed this experience into an opportunity to find their niche within this showcase of global cultures. Finding themselves on a global platform, with the opportunity to serve as model representatives of Indonesia's Muslim population, they reached out to the audience through passionate performances and workshops. In doing so, they combated hypothetical Islamophobic attitudes at the festival and rectified the audience's false perceptions about their dance and religiosity, turning themselves into smiling ambassadors of Islam. These powerful opportunities that Acehnese dance granted Aulia made her realize how the world outside of Indonesia sees Muslims, convincing her of her own responsibility as a global citizen to make the world a more knowledgeable and conscientious place.

In analyzing the voices of Yogyakarta's youth, it is clear that their choice to practice Acehnese dance over the Javanese dance, their own cultural heritage, stems from the Islamic elements of Acehnese performing arts. Furthermore, in Yogyakarta's current religious climate and particularly in the education sector, in which modern-reformist Islam thrives, the youth wish to be part of these changing trends. As a result, the Islamic identity in Acehnese music and dance is amplified in Yogyakarta. Acehnese arts provide them with opportunities to continue engaging with the arts, to deepen their piety, to engage with global events, and to distance themselves from Java's mysticism of the past.

Acehnese Music and Dance in Banda Aceh: Separating Religion and Cultural Heritage

Although Islamic elements in Acehnese performing arts have fueled its popularization in Yogyakarta, arts practitioners in Banda Aceh, instead, deliberately distance the arts from religion. As seen in the quotation at the opening of this article, Acehnese dancers were surprised to see how American audiences’ questions focused on their religiosity. Although the Acehnese recognize that Acehnese music has historically held the role as dakwah, and that the sitting body positions in Acehnese dance can be traced back to dhikr, they were puzzled by the questions I posed in interviews: “How does practicing music and dance impact your religious piety? How is it part of your religious life?” Instead, they emphasized the cultural heritage and traditional aspects of Acehnese music and dance. In this section, I discuss how today's socioreligious and political climate in Aceh necessitates an emphasis on Acehnese music and dance as cultural, rather than religious, practice.

The Indian Ocean earthquakes and tsunami in 2004 has impacted Acehnese arts significantly in several ways. Primarily, the practices of music and dance in Aceh have evolved from a vehicle of dakwah and dhikr to a form of entertainment, and most recently, to an expression of cultural identity in post-tsunami Aceh. The final and recent changes in the performance context have mainly been caused by the arrival of foreign NGOs, which have transformed people's perceptions of the arts from a pastime—entertainment for practitioners—to a celebration of cultural practices.^{6, 7} When Aceh became the site of humanitarian rescue projects from domestic and international NGOs, the staff who came into Aceh were racially, culturally, and religiously different from most Acehnese. Such differences manifested in the minds of the Acehnese with the recognition that Acehnese cultural practices are unique. After seeing how foreign NGO staff appreciated their music and dance, the Acehnese began to realize the potential for the performing arts to serve as an illustration of cultural identity, one that could be presented proudly and wield power.⁸

At the same time, Aceh's post-tsunami religious reawakening has increasingly contested women's involvement in the arts. In May 2013, the regional government of North Aceh issued a himbauan that prohibited women over the age of eighteen from dancing onstage. Muhammad Thaib, the head of the regency of Lhoksweumawe city in North Aceh at the time, claimed that such a regulation would positively impact the ways of Islamic lives (Ma 2013). In the hierarchy of laws and regulations deriving from the Acehnese legal system, himbauan is considered “advice” from authoritative figures in society, meaning that if an individual does not follow himbauan, the jurisdiction cannot punish the person legally. However, because this himbauan was also supported by local Islamic scholars and the MPU (Majeslis Permusyawaratan Ulama; Counsel of Islamic religious leaders), the decision about whether to follow this himbauan became something more: a question of people's religious morality. Issued in the name of Islam, the himbauan speaks to the conscience of the Muslim population.

Two other incidents that occurred during my fieldwork (2015–2016) highlight some of the challenges that performing arts practitioners in Aceh face today. One of the incidents involved a pair of Indian heritage dancers of the opposite sex who performed in close physical proximity onstage at a city-sponsored art festival. The other incident involved a young Acehnese male pop music singer with a large following of passionate adolescent female fans who sung along with admiration during his concerts. As discussed further in Ishiguro (2019a), both cases were criticized by regional government offices as well as the MPU, and the arts practitioners were banned from performing. In particular, the latter case became a powerful warning sign for many in Banda Aceh, as the ruling was no longer a contestation based on female bodies, for the singer had been male. Concerned with the pushback that artists now receive, Banda Aceh's performing arts communities have put into practice a number of strategies to navigate through their delicate conditions.

In Ishiguro (2019a), I discussed some of the strategies that Acehnese arts practitioners recently used to navigate through rather delicate socioreligious conditions. For example, teachers at sanggar educate their students about proper behavior when they share spaces with the opposite sex. By doing so, they hope to avoid instances in which the arts themselves become associated with misconduct, and therefore jeopardized (Khairul Anwar, personal communication, October 2015). Some choreographers, while continuing to create their original works, incorporate traditional Acehnese elements in movements, costumes, and accompaniments (Yusri Sulaiman, personal communication, September 2015). By doing so, the choreographers attempt to introduce their own originalities more gradually to the Acehnese public, preventing criticisms which may arise from unfamiliarity with contemporary dance. Finally, in 2015, a number of Acehnese arts practitioners, together with the Dewan Kesenian Aceh (Board of Acehnese Arts), became involved in the lawmaking process. Their goal was to create clear guidelines regarding the kind of performing arts practices that are considered acceptable in Aceh, thus allowing them to avoid prosecution by regional leaders and religious scholars (Salamanga 2017).

Another such strategy used in Banda Aceh is to articulate the cultural aspects regarding the roots of Acehnese music and dance, rather than its Islamic aspects. Several ethnomusicological works explore similar cases in which the performing arts exist in both religious and cultural arenas (Hardwick 2013; Harnish 2006, 2007; Wiebe 2017). In particular, Harnish (2007) illustrates how the indigenous Sasak people of Lombok Island in Indonesia have reshaped their performing arts—which originally existed solely as rituals—into tourist attractions. The secularization of music that originally had ritualistic meanings was a response to a complex sociocultural, religious, and economic condition. This involved the national government and tourism industries; the contestation was between the Muslim communities who practice localized forms of Islam and the more orthodox and recent conservative Muslim communities.

In the case of Aceh, during my fieldwork, many in Banda Aceh articulated the cultural aspects regarding the roots of Acehnese arts as a way to respond to the religious objections against music and dance. One strong argument addresses how several dances—including the choreographic works of Yuslizar (1937–?), Ranup Lampuan, and Meusare-sare—were commissioned in the 1960s by the regional government for events and festivals (Murtala 2009). Today, these two dances in particular belong to a core repertory of Acehnese dances presented at many events sponsored by the Acehnese regional government. Ranup Lampuan and its variants, in particular, have become Aceh's signature piece and is frequently taught within both arts programs at public schools and sanggar in Banda Aceh. An additional argument brings up the fact that Pekan Kebudayaan Aceh (PKA; Acehnese Cultural Week) has been held since 1958 and has continually received the sponsorship of the Acehnese regional government. PKA has become a showcase at which Acehnese art practitioners from all over the province gather to perform, further attracting domestic tourism. Considering how regional governments have played a significant role in promoting the arts, many feel it is incongruous for Acehnese music and dance to now become the target of criticism, despite the significant socioreligious changes the province and its administration have gone through in this post-tsunami era.

Photo 12. A performance of Yusri Sulaiman's Ranub by dancers from Sanggar Rampoe, Banda Aceh. Ranub is a spin-off of Yuslizar's Ranub Lampuan, which is most frequently used as a welcome dance at events such as weddings and openings of seminars and banks. Photograph by the author. Banda Aceh, August 2016.

Some of the more complex arguments that Acehnese art practitioners frequently raised involved discourses on Aceh's history: particularly the fact that Islam and culture have long been emphasized as inseparable. Although there have been changes in Aceh's religious climate, many present the strong Islamic presence in Aceh—both throughout history and today—to rebut the current criticism regarding the practice of performing arts. They argue that Aceh has always followed the path of Islam, and Acehnese music and dance have always existed side by side with the religion (Khairul Anwar, personal communication, 2015). Therefore, to deny their continuing involvement in Acehnese traditional music and dance would be to deny their history, unique heritage, and vibrant culture, all of which are based in Islamic teachings.

Such discussions about how the role of music and dance may relate to Islam are far from reaching consensus, even within the Acehnese performing arts communities. Those who follow more conservative views on religion state that religion and culture should not be mixed, as the former holds a far superior position (Zul Kifli, personal communication, 2015). To this end, they argue that Acehnese music and dance should be carefully delineated as having a cultural role, rather than a religious one—a sentiment that is reflected in the initial quotation of this article by several Acehnese dancers on the tour. Furthermore, Yusri Sulaiman, a prominent choreographer from Sigli (a city a few hours northeast of Banda Aceh) gave me another intriguing insight into the role of Acehnese music and dance in society. Sulaiman emphasized the role of Acehnese practice music and dance—which requires multiple bodies to work together as a way to cultivate horizontal relations between people, but not to deepen the vertical relations between God and people (Yusri Sulaiman, personal communication, November 2015). Therefore, for Yusri, Acehnese music and dance belongs to the domain of sociocultural relations rather than religion. Consequently, by framing music and dance practices as distant from any religious affiliations, some Acehnese practitioners attempt to defend the arts from the contestations raised by religious leaders.

The contrast between the function of Acehnese music and dance in Yogyakarta and Banda Aceh today are also reflected in the repertoire practiced in each location. Yogyanese practitioners wish to respect the traditions of Acehnese music and dance, which according to Yogyanese understanding, are inseparable from Islam. As such, they choose to perform exclusively traditional Acehnese pieces that contrast with Jakarta, where ratoeh jaroe, a newly created dance, has seen an explosive popularity. On the other hand, in Banda Aceh, although traditional repertoires are still practiced, a large number of dancers I worked with expressed greater enthusiasm in practicing kreasi baru, newly choreographed pieces. Female dancers especially described how they find the kreasi baru repertoire more advanced, as it has a framework they can explore further. By supplanting religion as the authority on the expression of Acehnese dances, performing arts practitioners in Banda Aceh argue that their art form is part of their cultural heritage and should therefore experience constant evolution.

Conclusion

Although I mainly discussed the blooming of Acehnese music and dance in Yogyakarta in recent years, Javanese court dance tradition in the city is still very much alive, especially in and around the royal courts. Furthermore, there are a number of sanggar, tourist attractions, traditional events, and after-school programs that continue to present opportunities for young dancers to learn court dance repertoire. However, I argue that an increased emphasis on Islamic living—and particularly on conservative reformist Islamic principles—in Yogyakarta has been felt by the general population, and especially university youth. Outside the circle of university students who have turned to Acehnese music and dance, there have also been disagreements at Javanese court dance sanggar, where older generations of dancers criticize young dancers who refuse to take off their head covers for practice sessions. As such, although the Javanese court dance still enjoys the patronage of the royal courts and national conservatories, the tradition's future remains uncertain.

In Yogyakarta's surrounding areas, such as Surakarta's neighboring regencies, some conservative Islamic communities have changed their performing arts policies. Javanese ethnomusicologist Sularso addresses that Sukoharjo and Kayanganyar, two regencies that were formerly under the Kasunanan royal court of Surakarta, a handful of Islamic boarding schools, and conservative communities have banned practices of music and dance; this ban was due to religious scholars and teachers at the schools who saw the practice of music and dance unfit for Muslim lives. To some, this development has been rather surprising, considering these regencies neighbor Surakarta, another court city where Javanese music and dance has thrived for decades. Sularso does not expect this ban to expand to Surakarta or Yogyakarta; however, he underscores that it only takes criticism from one religious leader in the community to make drastic changes concerning the permissibility of performing arts. Finally, Sularso highlights the increase in sanggar and similar organizations at universities in Surakarta and Yogyakarta, where university students primarily practice shalawatan and other song repertoires that do not come from Javanese music traditions or popular music scenes, but rather have Islamic elements in their instrumentation and lyrics. When one considers such cases in Yogyakarta and its vicinity, it is clear that the younger generation has taken center stage in this shift in consciousness.

As for the performing arts in Banda Aceh, I have argued that practitioners continue to exhibit resilience by creatively navigating through delicate socioreligious and political landscapes. Even more encouraging is the innovation and creativity evident among young arts practitioners. In one of the online discussions held in July 2020 by Murtala, a well-respected Acehnese arts practitioner, comments from Ulfa and Safrizal, dancer-musicians from Banda Aceh in their twenties, left strong impressions: in order for the arts to further develop, the mindset of the Acehnese people needs to change. They believe that through research, discussions, and education, the respect paid to the arts by the general public would rise, resulting in the creation of a space for further development of the Acehnese performing arts.

Over the last three decades, Muslim societies in various parts of the world have seen an increase in the engagement of women in public, in artistic spaces, and in leadership roles (Kamalkhari 1998; Mahmood 2005; Mottahedeh 2005) as the result of the global Islamic resurgence. In contrast, modern-reformist Islam in Indonesia has shifted the traditional, syncretic Islam practiced in Java and beyond to a more conservative and reform-minded Islam (Peacock 1978). In my work, as well as others’ studies of Indonesian Muslim women's performing arts (Ross 2013; Sunardi 2013), it is evident that this conservative turn in Indonesia has challenged women's engagement in the performing arts. Within such contexts, arts practitioners in Banda Aceh and Yogyakarta nonetheless continue to find ways to keep the arts as part of their lives, while also choosing to live as respectable Muslims. They sagely create strategies to navigate Islamic principles as well as recent sociocultural changes in Indonesia, thus enabling them to find their place in the arts and modern Islam with which they choose to engage.