The Legong Lasem Dance

Balitraveldiary.com – Being one of Indonesia’s most well-known tourist attractions in foreign countries, Bali is not only known for its beautiful panoramic beaches. But the dances also play an important role in developing tourism in this area. With costumes and accessories that are beautiful and give a magnificent impression, making a number of Balinese dances that tend to be energetic increasingly have its own attraction for tourists. One of them is Legong Dance which has become one of Bali’s icons in the eyes of the world. Expressive eye twinkling between the dancer’s flexible movements immediately reminds tourists of the island of Bali. Not surprisingly, because the level of popularity of this dance is far above other traditional Balinese dances.

That said, the word “legong” itself comes from a combination of the word “leg” which means dance moves that are flexible or supple or graceful, and the word “gong” which means gamelan. So it can be said that these Legong Dance movements, especially the accent movements, are combined with the sound of the accompanying gamelan.

Legong Dance accompaniment instruments are very strong, usually consisting of barungan instruments of Balinese gamelan, gangsa, jublag, jegogan, kempur, kemong, chirp, kajar, rehab, flute, and a pair of propagating gender and barangan gender. The Legong dance performance also always involves a tandak interpreter who gives accentation to the storyline adopted, and this is one of the characteristics of this dance.

Every time I mention Legong Dance, people usually interpret it as Legong Keraton Lasem Dance, which tells the story of Prabu Lasem’s journey. Actually, this Legong dance has many variants, such as Legong Candra Kanta, Legong Kuntul, Legong Goak Macok, Legong Butterfly Tarum, and others. The name of the variant is adjusted to the story told in the Legong dance. Legong dance has a structure consisting of: papeson, comedians, pangecok, and pakaad. While rhythmic and dynamic movements such as nyeregseg, ngembat, ngumbang, and other movements also support a very clear storyline.

The Legong Lasem dance, which in its development was called the Legong Keraton, first appeared in the second half of the 19th century and was better known as art for the people who lived in the castle. Only at the beginning of the 20th century, Legong Lasem began to spread to communities outside the castle and from time to time change the shape and structure of its presentation.

Usually this dance is performed by two or more girls. The Legong Lasem dance is usually first, though not always, with the Condong character opening the dance. Another distinctive feature of this dance is that the dancers use fans, except for the Condong character.

The Indonesia Exploride Team was stunned and were amazed by the classical dance performance. During the show, the audience was dominated by foreign tourists from Japan and Australia, while the audience from Indonesia was only ‘represented’ by the Indonesian Exploride team. Watching the classic, exotic and amazing Legong Lasem dance certainly gave the team its own entertainment.

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