12 September 2006
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School of Music PhD student Mr Iwan Amir highlights the Acehenese sitting dance tradition in a new documentary.
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The enigmatically-named sitting dance tradition of the Indonesian province of Aceh has been highlighted in the first ever documentary on the subject.
Merantau Tanpa Melangkah, by Monash PhD student Mr Iwan Amir was recently screened at Monash University's Clayton campus.
As the first documentary on the subject, it is expected to create a great deal of interest in Indonesia, said Mr Amir's PhD supervisor in the School of Music- Conservatorium, Professor Margaret Kartomi.
"The study of this beautiful song, dance and body percussion tradition of Aceh has been neglected in part because of the decades of political unrest there," she said.
Although the name suggests otherwise, Mr Amir said sitting dances were strictly for the young because they were so physically demanding. As they chant rhyming verse, performers dance from a base kneeling position and strike their own bodies to create intricate percussion rhythms. Their chants are interspersed with the song of a soloist, and the tempo builds until it comes to a sudden halt.
The documentary shows how the style has spread from Aceh, throughout Indonesia, to the capital, Jakarta, where interschool competitions are common. It includes footage of routines performed by Sydney and Melbourne-based cultural groups, whose members were unaware of the origins of the form.
Mr Amir said the popularity of the sitting dance tradition contrasted with other Acehenese dance traditions he had studied for his thesis.
"In my first documentary about a form of dance called seudati, many of the people I spoke to were concerned about finding ways to preserve the tradition. Sitting dance is arguably the most successful of the forms from this region. It is very appealing to the young," he said.
Mr Amir spent seven years of his childhood in Aceh, and has returned to live in Jakarta. He is the first recipient of the Sir James McNeill Postgraduate scholarship from the Monash School of Music - Conservatorium. The school is regarded as the world centre of research into the music of Sumatra - the island where Aceh is located.
In August, Mr Amir was one of two recipients of the annual John Legge Prize for Research Excellence, awarded for the best Monash post-graduate student research on South East Asia. | 
