Tonight I learnt that the Johor Heritage Centre was unique to the State of Johor in its promotion of local heritage. For all other States in Malaysia, culture and the arts has its own Department (Jabatan Kebudayaan & Kesenian Negara, JKKN). I learnt this because a friend (Elizabeth-Anne Louise) contacted Lawrence and I the night before as she had come across this event and thought we might be interested. Over our last four years in Johor Bahru, we have learnt to accept all and any invitation which comes our way, and it has brought us invaluable experiences.
So, tonight, we drove to the IPG Kampus Temenggong Ibrahim (coincidently, the same location where we showed our documentary film last Saturday) and were welcomed into a huge hall. Clearly they were not expecting non-locals; a lady came forward to welcome us and ask where we were from. As usual, the expectation is that we must be tourists, surely we don’t actually live here! Later on, a guy came up to Lawrence and asked the same question and you could sense the air of puzzlement on his face.
Most of the audience were groups of college students and we were glad when Elizabeth-Anne arrived to help guide us through the evening. The great thing about attending music and dance performances is that, although the whole event was conducted in Malay, it was not too hard to figure out what was going on. A gamelan orchestra was playing while the audience settled in, and two MC's in extravagant costumes said something or other. The lady MC in the photo on the right was dressed in a Javanese costume with an extremely heavy-looking ornate head dress. Under her golden boddess was a long sleeved black top. Originally, she would have shown bare arms and shoulders, but today Muslim ladies are preferred not to show such bare flesh.
The proceedings could not start properly until the VIPs had arrived, and they were fashionably very late! The MCs did not know how to fill the time, so just repeated all the announcements made previously. Eventually the VIPs processioned in and sat in large seats immediatedly in front of the stage. Most of the rest of the audience had an obstructed view of the stage because video cameras took priority view and cameramen repeatedly stood right in the way of the action on stage. It was becoming clear that this show was not being put on for the benefit of the majority of the audience.
Because this was a government-sponsored (JKKN) event, proceedings started with the audience standing to sing the Johor State Anthem and then the Malaysian National Anthem. According to Wikipedia, the Johor State Anthem was composed by an Armenian bandmaster called Mackertich Galistan Abdullah in 1897. In 1914 it received its lyrics from an Englishman (Hubert Allen Courtney, working for HSBC in Johor Bahru) which were rewritten into Malay by Haji Mohamed Said Hj.
The art form on display tonight is called “Perantisan Wayang Wong Johor” which translates as “movie puppet show". It is a mixture of shadow puppets and live actors. “Jalinan Bertitih” translates as “The tie is stained”, but I think that Google Translate has missed a beat here. The show was an extract from the Hindu story of Ramayana with cast wearing spectacular costumes. All their moves were very purposeful, and one could easily identify the goodies, the baddies, and the comic turns. What was most enjoyable was hearing the audience’s reactions to the performance.
If you are interested in experiencing the art and culture of Johor, then follow the JKKN Facebook page and look out for future events.
Lawrence had just got hold of a pocket Osmo camera (that’s a very small video camera on the gimble) so used tonight’s event to test it out. He made a short video of tonight’s outing which is shown here:
At the end of the show, everyone was introduced on stage and every member of the gamelon orchestra were named, so this took some time. The VIPs were invited on stage to receive gifts and finally the cast posed for the audience. The guys in red below were the baddies, and very convincing too!
So then it was time to go home and ponder on the state of arts and culture in Malaysia. Coincidently, this week saw the untimely death of Suzie Yap who was the co-founder of the Johor Society for Performing Arts (JSPA). Johor clearly needs someone who can showcase all these talented performers to all Malaysians. If we ‘foreigners’ can also be postively encourage, rather than passively allowed, to experience Johorean culture, then our lives too will be much richer for it.
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