Gender, Body, and Cultural Existence

Aryandari, Citra and Yuliadi, Koes (2021) Gender, Body, and Cultural Existence. In: 11th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Music, Gender, and Sexuality, 24-28 September 2021, Zagreb.

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Abstract

Gender, body, and cultural existence will discuss the phenomenon of the performance stage in Indonesia through two documentary films about an Arja Opera actor in Bali and the Dangdut singer in Karawang, entitled: Tika in Liku or Vice Versa and Song of Marginalized Woman. Tika in Liku or vice versa will present about Wayan Tika on the performance of Arja. The audience of Arja known Tika as Tika Liku. Because of Tika always plays as Liku on the Arja performance. Tika has produced Liku in many stages. It makes the audiences see Tika is Liku, a crazy princess who always pushes the ego for loving or others. Balinese society recognizes Tika when Arja Muani become popular in the mid-2000. Some of the theatre artists found Arja Muani for revitalizing Arja, which knew in 17 century. In the beginning, Arja's actor plays by the male, but in 1940 Balinese society knew a group of Arja named Arja Rabi-Rabi played by the princess of Ubud Kingdom. They have the right to appear in the public space and would like to show themself on the stage as an artist. Continuing the phenomenon of the scramble of female artist movement eventually made male artists share the stage. The condition is a critical point on Balinese performances in which male and female artists equals on the Balinese staging. Arja Muani arise at the end of 1990 would like to go back and make Arja belong to the male artist, that is why they put Muani (Male) on the name. Tika feels the Liku character be a moment of freedom, as free form dogmatism, and as characterized by a suspension of hierarchy and logic of inversion. It is a moment that makes Tika feel meaningful when the audience laughs. On the stage, Tika has created a territory, space where Tika has full power over the plays and Tika's body. The stage as a public space offering artistic works has provided opportunities for "freedom of self-determination." The audience can see this celebration when Tika starts put makeup for the character Liku. People often peek at Tika, while others patiently wait for Liku to dance, sing, and make fun of her self. In several performances, the audience makes interaction on stage. The gestures of the audience who directly interacted with Liku showed the impression that Tika was a female. He touches and treats Liku like a woman. Tika also responds to the movements or stimuli of the audience with a very feminine response. Song of Marginalized Woman is portraying the social conditions on Karawang district, which using Dangdut as women's bodies commodification in order to serve the male sexual fantasies. Through Lia' Askara' Ozawa (The most famous Dangdut Singer in Karawang). Karawang is about 75 kilometers from Jakarta, and it is known as the granary city because it produced an enormous amount of rice in the colonial era. Many women from Karawang were concubines in the colonial era and abandoned when the Dutch left Indonesia. In the society of farmers, cultural expressions aim at the needs of a fertility rite in celebration of the harvest. Swaying hips is adapted from the women's movement when they clean the rice. Swaying hips was the central part of Goyang Karawang. During the second military aggression in the Decolonization War with the Dutch in the late 1940s, there were large-scale massacres carried out by Dutch soldiers at Rawagede village (Southeast part of Karawang City) turning it from one day to another into a village of widows. The term Goyang Karawang known since the 1990s for dangdut song title. This song reminds us that Karawang has a Goyang tradition associated with the history of their struggles (how they were confronting the Dutch army). At first, Goyang Karawang was used for women when they cleaned the padi (rice), then, during the colonial era, the term was used as a sign of war. Currently, Goyang Karawang has become a form of entertainment connected with dangdut music. The presence of television in Karawang brings significant cultural change. When Dangdut declared as music for the Indonesian people and shook with the sensuality, Lia also assured themselves want to be a singer. In 2006 she made her dangdut group named Askara, which is an acronym of Asli Karawang (genuine from Karawang). She chose Ozawa as a surname, which incidentally takes from a Japanese porn star named Maria Ozawa. Ozawa, known as a sex symbol in the virtual world of sexuality, brings imagination to hear the name. Goyang Karawang becomes a public media to express their sexual desires in the eastern zone of cultural modesty integral to the identity of the territory exalted. The Dangdut singer, as victims of the patriarchal system, to serve the needs of the male sexual or economic commodity in the music industry. On the other hand, these women as subjects who have the power through the appearance and actions. Through two films based on ethnographic research, some questions need to be discussed; the performance stage is considered to have a specific perspective on determining 'gender.' Historically, the stage can also be said to have power over a female's body, and it turns out to have been a struggle for determining the existence of gender. With the two films presented being a question then how to understand 'female' in the world of shows performance? Are females still socially constructed or based on personal desires and bodily identities?.

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