Bedhaya Ketawang dance

HISTORY

Some kind of female dance known as bedhaya existed on Java at least as early as the Majapahit empire. Indeed, some of the steps of the modern dance are said to be as old as the third century.However, the modern form is traditionally dated to the court of Sultan Agung of Mataram (reigned 1613–1645). Unfortunately there is almost no historical evidence to back up the claims made about the advances in the arts in Sultan Agung's courts, and the existence of the dance is not clearly documented until the late 18th century.
There are many myths which explain the origin of the dance, which generally have either an account of a meeting with an Indic dieity (Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra, or the Buddha), or the meeting of Kangjeng Ratu Kidul, the Goddess of the South Sea, meeting with a founder of the Mataram dynasty, either Sultan Ageng or his grandfather, Senapati. In the former, the nine dancers were the creation of a deity, who were brought to life, and offered the dance to their maker in gratitude. In the latter, the dance was created when Kangjeng Ratu Kidul fell in love with the sultan, and danced the bedhaya for him; the nine dancers in the modern dance represent the spirit of the goddess.
Since the decline in the power of the royal courts, other, more accessible forms of bedhaya have become popular, not as religious ritual, but as artistic performance. These do not require the royal presence, and may be performed on stage for an admission fee. They frequently recount stories used in wayang.

DANCE

The dance is held in a pendhapa, a pillared audience hall with a peaked roof, with the Susuhunan on a throne in the middle of the room. The dance is performed in three large sections. In each section, the dancers emerge from a room behind the audience hall, approach the throne single file, dance in front of the throne, and then retreat, again single file. They approach and retreat on opposite sides of the throne, thus circumambulating the throne in a clockwise direction, the appropriate direction for veneration in Buddhist and Shaivist traditions.
A name and number is given to each of the nine dancers, which designate a specific position in the changing choreographic pattern. There are slight variations between different sources in the names and numbers of the dancers, but there is consensus on the general forms. They are: a human being, representing tanha (the word for desire or craving in Buddhism), four chakras (the top three of which are used as note names; see slendro), and the four limbs:
èndhèl/èndhèl ajeg, "desire", "constant/fixed desire", "attachment"
pembatak/batak, "head", "mind"
gulu/jangga, "neck"
dhadha, "chest"
buncit/bunthil, "tail", "genitals", "lower end of spinal column"
apit ngajeng/apit ngarep, "right arm", "right flank", "front flank"
apit wingking/apit mburi, "left arm", "rear flank"
èndhèl weton/èndhèl wedalan ngajeng/èndhèl jawi, "right leg", "emergent desire", "front emergent desire", "outside desire"
apit meneng/èndhèl wedalan wingking, "left leg", "quiet flank", "rear emergent desire"
The first two sections of the dance each have three positions, with slight variations, while the last adds a final, fourth position. The first position is in the shape of a human being, with the first five dancers in a line down the middle, and those representing the right and left sides in front and behind (from the perspective of the Susuhunan), respectively. In the second position, the dancers divide into two facing groups, the arms and desire to one side, and the chakras and legs on the other. In the third section of the dance, there is an added section of an encounter between the desire and head dancers in the second position, while the other dancers squat. The third position places the dancers either in a row (Surakarta) or with the arms to one side (Yogyakarta), with desire in the middle. The final position is in a 3x3 grid (rakit tiga-tiga), with the three upper chakra centers in the middle column.