THE IRONY OF RONGGENG DANCER
by : Rifky Effendy
Today we give on to paintings created with mixed media. Using digital photography, Doni Kabo is exhibiting paintings of a dancer in different body movements. Perhaps, it is my first time to see the subject of female dancer in paintings created by the artist, who at present attends post-graduate program in the Indonesia Institute of Arts-Yogyakarta. This series of works features a woman named Srintil, a Ronggeng dancer who is accused of being a supporter of Indonesian Communist Party in Ahmad Tohari’s trilogy novels: Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk, Lintang Kemukus Dini Hari, and Jentera Bianglala. These three novels tell about internal struggle of the dancer who lives in a society that is still very traditional.
In the first novel of this Srintil Trilogy, Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk, the story has setting of time and place of Indonesia around 1965 within a very “low-cultured” society of Javanese people in. It depicts the simple life of the society who has not been contaminated by modernization. There is even no religion except the indigenous belief known as kejawen that is so peaceful. In sexual issue, virginity for most women is a purity that was given to husband only. Yet, for certain groups of people like Srintil, it serves as a means of deciding a woman worth becoming a ronggeng dancer. Such situation is constructed by not only men who want to taste the virginity but also women who want to accomplish a glamorous life.
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