A Graceful Legong Dancer

A statue of depicting the graceful gestures of a Balinese Legong dancer in front of a fountain at Rumah Mode, a famous factory outlet located on Jalan Setiabudi in the north or Bandung.

To give you an idea of how a real Legong dance looks like, you can visit Bandung Daily Photo's sister blog Bandung Daily Video.

Chinese New Year in Bandung: The Barongsai Performance

As of mid-night last night, Chinese all over the world welcome the new lunar year of 2560. Happy New Year to those who celebrate it.

Although Chinese only makes up a small percentage (roughly about 5 - 7 percent) of the Indonesian population, the Chinese New Year, called Imlek or Sin Tjia in Indonesian, is a national holiday and a festive celebration here. The celebrations involve not only the ethnic Chinese but also Indonesians of other ethnicity.

The Chinese would normally go to the temple to pray on the New Year's Eve. It is also customary for them to give "Ang Pao" (envelopes containing gift money) to the poor and their relatives after the prayer, have a family gathering, feast, and fire works. In addition to these, different cultural performances are also staged. One such performances - and the most popular here - is the Barongsai (the Dragon-Lion Dance) shown in these photos.

I took these photos at Ciwalk (Cihampelas Walk) today. In the top photo, a child is giving an Ang Pao to one of the Barongsais. The bottom photo shows the crowds enjoying and cheering at the various acrobatic tricks that these Barongsais were performing.

UPI Students and Faculty Members Plan to Break The Indonesian Record of The Most Numerous Saman Dancers

These students of the Faculty of Language and Art Education of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI), Bandung, were gathering at the university's sports complex today to practice and rehearse for what is planned to be Indonesia's record breaking number of dancers performing Tari Saman (Saman Dance).

The current record was made on June 8 this year at the occasion of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Indonesia's national awakening at Gelora Bung Karno (Soekarno Sports Complex and Stadium) in Jakarta. 600 people performed the dance then. This time The Faculty of Language and Arts Education of UPI is trying to break that record by involving 700 of its students and faculty members to perform the dance.

Saman Dance is originally from the Indonesian province of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (Aceh) in the northern tip of Sumatra Island. It is a very dynamic group dance with highly sinchronized choreography.

To see in motion what the rehearsal was like, please check this 30 second YouTube video streaming from Bandung Daily Photo's new sister, Bandung Daily Video.

My world: Jaipongan, A West Javanese Cultural Heritage

"Jaipongan" is a relatively new creation dance. The correography of this dance is attributed to Gugum Gumbira, a prominent Bandung artist, musician, dancer, and correographer. It became popular in the early 1980s.

The correography of "jaipongan" is derived from/inspired by older West Javanese traditional folk "socialization" dances such as "ketuk tilu", "kliningan", "bajidoran" and some movements of "pencak silat" (Indonesian traditional martial art). It is called a socialization dance because it is primarily performed as an entertainment (as compared to dances that are performed for rituals or other ceremonial occasions) where members of the audience are invited to take part and interact with the dancer(s) and other members of the audience.

"Jaipongan" by the way is a very dynamic dance with swift, quick, and rhythmical motions and music.

This post is my participation for the meme MY WORLD.