How she turned Malay dance into a viral TikTok challenge | Timeless - video Dailymotion

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Founded in 1950s, Sriwana is one of the oldest surviving Malay performing arts group in the local arts scene. This passionate performing arts group has dedicated decades to preserving the meaning behind Malay arts. Artistic Director Fauziah Hanom Yusof shares the beauty, symbolism, and cultural aspect of Malay performing arts and what it takes to keep them alive today in an effort to hold onto identity.  Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video

Transcript

00:00You saw, right, just now I go very slow, very graceful.

00:04Then suddenly I go jumping, it's joggett.

00:07Yeah, so besides the form, it also comes with the feel to the ragam.

00:14How do we keep this new dance works to show our identity?

00:19It all comes up into fine-tuning the individual itself.

00:25We must also know that the Malay dance exemplifies the Malay culture at its best.

00:30Because we show them the best of our costume, the best of our beautiful face,

00:35the best of our art form as in our movement.

00:38So it's something that we should be proud of.

00:48Hi, my name is Fauzia Hanom Yusof.

00:51I am the President and the Artistic Director of Sriwana.

00:54Sriwana was first formed in 1955.

00:57It started first as a Kronchung musical group with our founder,

01:02Haji Nunchik Ghani, and his co-founder, Sulaiman Jim.

01:06I first started dancing when I finished my pre-U days.

01:10I guess that was in 1984.

01:13Yeah, so I was more on dancing on a community level until I started joining Sriwana in 2000.

01:20So here I am until today from a dancer and still here.

01:28What Sriwana has been focusing on is the Malay traditional arts form.

01:34How we maintain the core values and try to educate the public.

01:40We've been actively involved in performances as well as have our own internal dance workshops every year,

01:48which we give to the public for those who are interested to learn more about the Malay dance.

01:59For every Malay dancer, they would know, or they should know by heart,

02:02the five basic movements of Malay dance, which is the Asli, the Inang, the Zapin, the Masri, and the Joged.

02:10They should be very good in this knowledge of the different movements of the dance.

02:15Each character has their own symbolically meaning because every melody, every movement has their own different character.

02:24For example, if you see an Asli movement, you will see the hands going very slow.

02:30One, two, three, four.

02:33There's so much grace when it comes to Asli.

02:36Yeah, so that's Asli.

02:38Yeah, but when it comes to Joged, it has to be very, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

02:43They're very happy, you know.

02:44So it's a different mood altogether.

02:46So all these characters, I mean the dance itself, it exudes a different mood.

02:53Okay, you saw all right just now, I go very slow, very graceful.

02:57Then suddenly I go jumping.

02:58It's Joged.

03:00Yeah, so besides the form, it also comes with the feel to the ragam.

03:07The Malay dance form itself is very unique because in the past,

03:12it used to reflect the current situation of that time.

03:16So in the past, we had court dances which we normally portray,

03:20the kampung style, the relationship style in the olden days.

03:25Example of it is like in the past, you know, we used to have kampung.

03:28So we have the harvest dance where we have the farmers, yeah,

03:32who completed a very happy harvest dance.

03:36So we have lots of common props.

03:37We have the what you call the Tudong Sai Ji, you know, that triangle food cover.

03:41We used to see that in every household, but in a dance form, we use it multiple ways

03:46because trying to show different ways of using the foot cover artistically,

03:51for cover for the head.

03:52We can also use it as a shield as well as functionally.

03:55So all these different ways of doing that particular props

04:01is always being shown in the dance form in the olden days.

04:06But right now, because you don't see these props nowadays, so it has evolved.

04:10So the dance nowadays comes up with a different kind of props,

04:14reflecting the modern nature of the situation that we have now.

04:19All right, come. So now we are at the ladies' section.

04:28Okay, I will show you the different, similar style as the guys.

04:32For, you know, for Malay dance, when there's a more grand kind of dance items,

04:38we have outerwear, or they call it jacket.

04:40So we have very elaborate outer jacket like this.

04:44Can you see with all this, you call this sulam?

04:47All right, so we have this additional beadings, or to make it even more grand,

04:52we have this beads, which is, you know, you look at that.

04:55So these are all outerwears, which they normally use as a jacket.

05:00And then this is the songkit.

05:02Yeah, so a full attire will be like the earlier one, plus this outer jacket.

05:08And I forgot to show you the tanjak.

05:10That makes a complete hero-like dance attire.

05:17Okay, all right, come. We are good, let's go.

05:26One thing I feel that is being misunderstood is Malay dance is boring.

05:32Yeah, it's uninteresting because it's very outdated because the movements,

05:39sometimes the songs are not up to date, but they do not know behind that art form comes discipline.

05:47It all comes up into fine-tuning the individual itself.

05:52That's the behind the scenes which I think the public isn't aware.

05:56But we must also know that the Malay dance exemplifies the Malay culture at its best,

06:01because we show them the best of our costumes, the best of our beautiful face,

06:06the best of our art form as in our movements.

06:09So it's something that we should be proud of.

06:14The major changes in the Malay dance art form is trying very hard to stay very close to our traditional,

06:27our core movements, because we have influences from the modern world,

06:33which is much available thanks to the social media.

06:36So these are the kind of influences which look very interesting to the new ones,

06:41to the young choreographers, but if they do not have the basic knowledge

06:45of what's a core traditional Malay dance is, they might misuse and adapt the wrong technique,

06:53the wrong interpretation and compromise the dance piece itself.

06:59It's my responsibility to keep the heritage which I know other groups have been doing it.

07:05All those court dance pieces, at least six or seven of them,

07:10what was created in the 1950s, we've kept it alive and we've made them a part of the curriculum of the talents here.

07:18We've kept scripts of the work, the theatre pieces, done during the 60s, the 70s.

07:25We have to be relevant, but we do understand that we have to keep this traditional arts form,

07:32which is sadly, it's going, going, gone, because not many really understand the beauty of this Malay traditional arts form.

07:40So for me, preaching to the young ones, the beauty and the responsibility of keeping this traditional arts form.

07:48The challenge is, of course, how do we repackage it and then make it interesting

07:53so that the young ones will want to learn more and then they will continue and even enrich it.

07:59An example of what we did in the TikTok platform, so this is the, we call it the first dance challenge.

08:07Okay, so the dancers will do a dance challenge and then you can see the non-Malays doing it,

08:13and yet they're doing it in families. Yeah, so it becomes like more of a family bonding kind of thing.

08:20So you'll see all the different nationalities, the different ages, they are all keen to participate in the challenge.

08:31Yeah, so these are the kind of things that Sriwana has been trying to be relevant in trying to be involved more

08:39and making use of the social media platforms to reach out.

08:44People come and go, they want to, the young ones especially, the Gen Z especially, trying to understand them, you know.

08:50It's so different from the generations, my time and these people this time.

08:55So it's how we manage, how we balance in trying to understand them so that we keep these people.

09:01At the same time, we nurture them.

09:04Because for any form of a group, a performing arts group, I think financing is one of the key things

09:12which kinds of deters a little bit on the development.

09:16The expectations of us producing high standard of form of productions, but we are not getting the full finance.

09:25But that doesn't stop us because we will try to continue other means of getting other forms of revenue.

09:30But whether it's successful or not, I guess we have to be realistic.

09:34Sometimes certain years it does, certain years it doesn't.

09:41It's the performers, it's the people around you, especially in Sriwana.

09:44It's the bond, the family that we've created over the years, over those hardships, over those productions that have kept us.

09:53That makes me stay until today.

How she turned Malay dance into a viral TikTok challenge | Timeless

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