Il rèak di Bandung tra rituale cerimoniale e intrattenimento popolare: una tradizione contemporanea sundanese (parte II)

Abstract

The one of horse dances, commonly known in Indonesia as jaranan, kuda lumpingor jathilan, is a branch of ceremonial musical performances during which a group of artists led by a pawang− analogous, hence not perfectly corresponding, to the one of the shaman – and accompanied by an ensemble of musicians, undergo a series of voluntary possession by the spirits of the ancestors. After having analyzed the Sundanese version of this phenomenon (kasenian réak)problematizing it in the wake of the polar tension between the concepts of tradition and innovation, tourism and orthodoxy in the previous issue of this magazine, the author reconstructs the history of cultural policies in independent Indonesia, trying to explain the evolution of the phenomenon and to understand what a possible future of the practice could look like.