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About
About RAI Film
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Ethnographic Film Catalogue
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About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
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RAI FILM
Login
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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
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Films
found one film
Country
“Indonesia”
x
Directors
“Hughes-Freeland, Felicia”
x
Year of production
“1988”
x
Region
South-East Asia
1
Country
Indonesia
1
x
Keywords
Dance / Theatre / Performance
1
Directors
Hughes-Freeland, Felicia
1
x
Series
not set
1
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
Year of production
1988
1
x
Film
The Dancer and the Dance
1988
44
‘
Directed by
Felicia Hughes-Freeland
.
This film is an invitation to see Javanese palace dancing as performed in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and to go beyond appearances to discover what the dance means to those who continue the tradition. In this film dancers prepare to entertain guests at a wedding reception and perform the Love Dance (Langen Nawung Asmara). The female dancer, Susindahati, becomes the centre of attention as she does her household duties and then goes to the Secondary School of Performing Arts for classes in teaching theory and practical training in the Golek Asmarandana dance. Susindahati’s generation is concerned with the perfecting of technical mastery. It is the older generation who can explain the importance of dance as a discipline, and the ideas associated with it. One of the connoisseurs, R. Kawindrasusena (known as Pak Seno), reads part of a philosophical text in the macapat style, and explains the spiritual elements of palace dance in Yogyakarta. At a training session of the Yayasan Siswa Among Beksa dance association, he describes his early experience of learning to dance, and explains the Javanese way to watch dances such as the elaborate Bedhaya Gandakusuma, which is being rehearsed with a gamelan orchestra and singers. After samples from this one-and-a-half hour long dance, Pak Seno offers his interpretation of the significance of what we have just seen.
South-East Asia
Dance / Theatre / Performance