Sundanese Dance, Song and Theatre of West Java

Sundanese dance, song and theatre at a glance

Sundanese dance, song and theatre cover the performing arts of the Sundanese people of West Java, and they are easiest to understand as three working families. Dance forms are built around movement and a drum-led ensemble. Song forms rest on the voice and the kacapi zither. Theatre and puppetry carry a story through characters, usually with comedy running beside the plot. Each family has its own setting, pace and audience, so the first decision for a visitor or reader is which kind of evening they want. For the language, music and ritual around these arts, see the Sundanese culture guide. The performances themselves, and where each one sits in its family, come next.

Most of the names below will be unfamiliar to readers away from West Java, and several of them overlap. A useful way to sort them is by what happens on stage: whether people move, whether the voice carries the evening, or whether a character speaks and a story unfolds. Dance comes first because it is the most visible of the three.

The dance forms: movement, drums and a singer

Jaipongan and the ketuk tilu root

Jaipongan is the most widely known Sundanese dance, and its history explains a good deal about the others. The dance was built by Gugum Gumbira from the music of ketuk tilu, a traditional Sundanese ensemble, and from the movements of pencak silat, the Sundanese martial art. The form grew out of a village ensemble and a martial art, and the mix of the two is what gives it its drive. Gumbira shaped it in the 1970s, and it went on to become one of the best-known dances of West Java.

The sound is built on a drum-led ensemble with a female singer, known as a sinden, carrying the melody. The village and martial roots give the dance its drive, and it remains lively and fast. If you want the most energetic version of Sundanese dance, jaipongan is the one to see first, and it is also the easiest of the group to hear on a first listen.

Ketuk tilu and bajidoran: the village roots

Ketuk tilu is the older root of jaipongan. The name refers to its three ketuk gongs, and it is a traditional Sundanese ensemble. Understanding ketuk tilu first makes jaipongan easier to hear, because the newer dance keeps the sound of the old ensemble in a more polished and expanded form. Bajidoran is related in a different way. It is Sundanese dance music played at celebrations, so the music is part of a community event rather than a performance watched from seats. Readers who want to see how that community setting works in practice can start with Bajidoran.

Kuda Renggong, Tari Merak and dances tied to an occasion

Not every Sundanese dance is built for a stage. Kuda Renggong is the dancing horse performance of Sumedang, and it belongs to a public occasion in which the horses are the stars. A visitor who wants that experience has to plan around the festival itself, not around a theatre programme. Tari Merak is the peacock dance of West Java and takes its name from that bird. Its appeal for a reader is the clear image it presents: a single theme that can be followed from start to finish without any knowledge of the wider tradition.

Ronggeng, Benjang and the Priangan dances

The word ronggeng refers to a female singer-dancer, a role that appears across several forms in this group. Ronggeng Gunung comes from the southern part of the Priangan highlands, around Ciamis and Pangandaran, and its title points to that hill-village setting. Benjang from the eastern side of Bandung, around Ujung Berung and Cileunyi, is the most physical of the dances here, combining Sundanese music with martial arts in one event. Mojang Priangan dance belongs to the Priangan region of West Java. A reader who starts with the dances will find that the village, festival and martial traditions each make a different kind of evening.

The song forms: voice, zither and flute

Song forms in this group sit on the kacapi, the boat-shaped zither that accompanies much of Sundanese vocal music. The kacapi indung and the kacapi rincik work together, and the bamboo suling flute ornaments the singing and plays between verses. Those three instruments form the basic toolkit for most of the song forms, and once a reader can recognise them, the differences between the forms become easier to hear.

Tembang Sunda and cianjuran: the classical voice

Tembang Sunda is a classical vocal form of West Java, and it is also called mamaos cianjuran. The second name is the one many listeners use, and it refers to the same classical tradition, which is why cianjuran is also listed on its own. The kacapi is the main accompanying instrument. Between songs, an instrumental kacapi suling piece gives the listener a break from the heavier singing, so the evening moves in alternating blocks rather than one unbroken song.

The most distinctive feature of a traditional tembang evening is its change of mood. The opening group of pieces is set in the laras pelog scale and sounds light, and the later group moves into laras sorog, which is slower and graver. In a full traditional performance that change comes late in the night. A listener who hears the shift for the first time usually notices it as a turn in the room rather than as a technical point, and that is the best reason to sit through a whole performance rather than a single song.

Kawih and kliningan: the wider song world

Kawih is the Sundanese word for sung verse, and it is the term to recognise when a song belongs to the wider repertoire rather than the classical style. Kliningan is another Sundanese music form a listener meets alongside tembang. Kacapi and suling carry much of the Sundanese song world, so a listener who knows the classical repertoire will find familiar sounds in these forms.

Pantun and carita pantun: sung storytelling

Pantun Sunda is an oral narrative performed with songs and music on the kacapi zither. The performers are called juru pantun, and their stories are epic sung tales that combine narration, dialogue and song. The stories usually concern the kingdoms of the Galuh and Pajajaran periods, and a single performer carries them over a long evening. The tales themselves are the subject of carita pantun. Ciung Wanara is one of them, and his story is a clear first example of how a pantun carries a whole plot in song.

The theatre and puppet forms: stories with characters

Wayang golek and the clown Cepot

Wayang golek is one of the traditional Sundanese puppet arts of West Java. It shares the wider wayang family of puppet theatre, and its characters come from the same stock of heroes and servants that other wayang traditions use. Among those characters is Cepot, a Sundanese punakawan, one of the servant figures of the wayang tradition. Among the servant figures, his comic role is easy to follow within a performance. For a reader who has never seen a puppet play, Cepot is a practical way into the form, because a reader can follow his part of the evening without first mastering the whole plot.

Longser, sandiwara and folk theatre

Longser is a Sundanese folk theatre form from the Priangan region. Its plays are delivered in Sundanese, and comedy runs beside the plot. Because the form depends on local troupes, the older material and the newer staging can differ a good deal from one group to the next.

Where longser is a stage form, the wider folk theatre tradition that the region developed alongside it is the subject of Sandiwara Sunda. The two sit close together as neighbouring forms, and readers who enjoy one will usually find the other easy to follow.

How to choose between the three families

The fastest way to decide is to ask what kind of evening you want. The three families differ mainly in how much of the experience is physical, how much is listening, and how much is following a story. Each one rewards a different kind of attention, and none of them is the single correct entry point for the whole tradition.

• Dance forms suit a reader who wants energy, movement and a crowd. Their rhythm is the main event, and the audience is pulled into the performance more directly than in the other two families.
• Song forms suit a reader who wants to listen closely. The voice, the zither and the flute carry the evening, and the pleasure comes from following the mood as it changes across the performance.
• Theatre and puppet forms suit a reader who wants a story with characters. The plot is the thread, and the comedy and the characters give the audience a way to follow the story even without knowing the language well.

If you want movement and volume

The dance family is the place to begin. Jaipongan gives the clearest picture of how a Sundanese ensemble can drive a crowd, and ketuk tilu explains where its sound came from. Bajidoran shows the same kind of music serving a village celebration, which is a useful contrast for anyone who wants to see a community event rather than a concert. Kuda Renggong and Tari Merak sit at the more occasional end of the family, because they depend on a festival or a single dance theme rather than a steady stage programme.

If you want to listen closely

Tembang Sunda and its alias, cianjuran, are the right place to start. The classical structure rewards patience, and the shift in scale is the moment that makes the listening worthwhile. Kawih gives a good comparison, because it belongs to the same song culture and lets a listener hear what the wider repertoire sounds like. Kliningan adds the same kacapi and suling pairing in a different setting, so a reader who enjoys one will recognise the instruments in the other. Pantun Sunda is the story-led option within the song family, where the kacapi carries a long narrative rather than a set of separate songs.

If you want a story with characters

Wayang golek and its clown, Cepot, make the easiest entry. His scenes are the most accessible part of the puppet form, and they show the role of the servant figures in plays that are otherwise built on larger epic material. Longser follows the same logic on a human stage, with comedy beside the plot. Sandiwara Sunda offers the folk theatre counterpart. Together, those three forms show how a Sundanese story can be told through puppets, through performers on a bare stage, or through a sung narrative that a single performer carries.

Practical notes before you go

Dances and song traditions tied to a festival, a village celebration or a ritual feast follow the calendar of the community that holds them, so a visitor should plan around the specific event rather than around a general idea of the art form. Stage forms such as jaipongan, tembang Sunda and longser are easier to fit into an itinerary, but the performance you see will still depend on the group and the season. Ask at the venue which performance is on before you travel.

Details such as the names of current performers, the state of a particular troupe or the exact form of a festival change from one season to the next. Treat each form here as an introduction and check the current position locally before making plans around it. The forms themselves are best understood by what they are, how they are built, and what a first-time listener can expect to notice on first contact.