The fifth and final Wacana Warisan Series (WWS) webinar in 2022, titled “Recognising Tarian Melayu’s Contribution to Singapura’s Sociocultural History Pre-Nationstate”, organised by the Malay Heritage Foundation (MHF), was delivered by guest speaker Dr. Noramin Farid. Dr. Noramin Farid is a choreographer, arts educator and Southeast Asian performing arts researcher. He has much experience in the performing arts scene, being the president of DIAN Dancers and a founding member of Arki-Gen, a group focused on promoting discourse and research about Southeast Asian performing arts. Moderating this session is a former dancer in traditional and contemporary Malay Dance and our Teman Warisan, Ms. Liyana Nasyita Shukarman. Ms. Liyana is a postgraduate from the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her research focuses on developmental studies and the relationship between literature and society.
Saturday, 11th November 2022 – Dr. Noramin Farid first opened the lecture with the present topic considerations. Firstly, he shared that even though 1965 was considered “Year Zero” in the Malay Dance scene, there is still a recognition that Malay Dance existed pre-nation state. This was done by acknowledging and appreciating groups such as Sriwana and Perkumpulan Seni as the beginning of Malay Dance in Singapore. Hence, there is evidence that Singapore was already a thriving space for the performing arts even before becoming a nationstate.
However, what we know of Malay Dance in Singapore is that it is part of nation-building. Dr. Noramin cited two examples: the recruitment of Malay dancers into the People’s Association Cultural Troupes (PACT) in 1965 and the National Dance Company in 1970. These two entities provided a difference between community and art dancers and facilitated the transition of Malay Dance from being a folk dance to an art dance. He shared how this eventually led to the National Dance Company being invited to perform at the Adelaide Arts Festival of 1972. They showcased five different music genres, (1) Asli, (2) Inang, (3) Joget, (4) Masri and (5) Zapin, now known as the five foundational music-dance genres of Malay performing arts. Dr. Noramin then introduced the term “Model Malay Minority Dancer-Citizen”. As a minority group and Muslim in Singapore, Malays had to navigate many nationstate-building agendas and stereotypes surrounding the Malay people. Furthermore, he draws on Alatas’ (1977) work “The Myth of the Lazy Native”, which called for a model Malay minority that is hardworking and showcases the best of their culture. This prompted Dr. Noramin to reference the “Model Malay Minority Dancer-Citizen” as a role that Malay dancers have to play, especially when portraying our culture internationally.
Dr. Noramin then listed the implications if we only acknowledge an institutional understanding of Malay dance. Firstly, we risk losing and not knowing the nuances and “colours of cultural life”. Dr. Noramin also realised that dance is an organic activity and is not used in sociocultural engineering. Lastly, he highlighted the contentions about Malay Dance and performing arts, such as how people still question whether it is considered halal/haram, whether it is taboo and how there were historical figures in Malay dance that were “working girls”.
Dr. Noramin shared his experience working with archival materials from the late colonial period for his research. In the late colonial period, there were many visual representations of Malay dance in postcards, book manuals, newspapers, and more. However, he added how interestingly, Malay dance was not seen as a form but rather as a hindrance and nuisance at that time. At this juncture, Dr. Noramin stressed that he does not look at Malay dance’s form but more of the ecosystem that helps us understand what it is. As such, when he looked at these archival materials, there were specific issues that he had to deal with. Firstly, his positionality, such as his gender and 21st-century sensibilities. Next, our understanding of Malay dance extends our colonial knowledge of dance. Also, the lack of materials looking at dance directly and the inadequacy of methodology to engage deeply with the materials to help imagine sociocultural circumstances. While looking at archival material is usually a descriptive activity, Dr. Noramin mentioned how this is when he uses his embodied knowledge as a dancer to engage deeper with these materials.
Dr. Noramin next highlighted three critical dance studies that gave him a lot of insights to work with. Firstly, he shared how dance is an inclusive space which refers to how US Scholars of colour (Black and Latin) had forged the path to provide a nuanced understanding of dance history. This is primarily because our history was written by the White Man, making it necessary for us to engage deeply with critical race theories and anti-racist praxis. Similarly, as Malay dance is a racial representation, we must acknowledge our position as an indigenous minority. Second, dance is culture, and dance is political. Dr. Noramin talks about how there is a need to acknowledge dance as not just a product of aesthetics but having the capacity to be political, social and cultural. Lastly, Dr. Noramin pointed out the methodologies and recognised his 20-year training as a Malay dancer as knowledge and method. As such, when engaging in visual materials, he acknowledges the embodied and sensory, which refer to decentering ocularcentrism.
Then, Dr. Noramin looked at colonial misconceptions. He shared how Malay dance was a source of complaint in colonial newspapers and was described as a “noise nuisance” as it was practised in the early morning. Therefore, this disruption prompted the municipal government at the time to start a theatre ordinance. This meant that there were rules and regulations on every form of performing arts and a need to get a licence to have any sort of entertainment, which proved inconvenient for many communities. Furthermore, Dr. Noramin referenced the colonials as having “Colonial Myopia”, whereby the colonials had misidentified the Chinese Opera drum as the Malay drum in a complaint.
As such, the Sonic Environment in Colonial Singapore could be described in three matters by Dr. Noramin. Firstly, drawing on the work of Jenifer McCallum, Dr. Noramin explained how busy noisiness is a positive description of sound and its close relation to social life as it showed strength, economic success, and political power. Next. Dr. Noramin added that the emergence of time-thrift refers to how the colonials carried the mindset of “Time is profit” and that they had to “improve each shining hour”, which meant that they had segregated their time for rest and be industrious. However, on the other hand, many Malay performing arts would start after the Isyak prayers. They could go on till morning or even for days because their understanding of time differed. Lastly, he discussed the excessive regulations set by the theatre ordinance. Many Malay people lived in villages on the boundary of an urban setting, and it was inconvenient for them to travel far to get a license to practice performing arts in their homes.
Moving forward, Dr. Noramin shared about colonial misidentifications. For example, a postcard that stated Javanese dancing girls in Singapore was not actually Javanese dance, but a picture of a Burmese form called the Yin. This evidently displayed the colonial fetishisation of Java. Similarly, Dr. Noramin showed postcards labelled Malay Dance in Singapore. However, were they really from Singapore? Hence, it seems that the thriving port city of Singapore was just seen as a representation of the Malaya world altogether.
The following archival material that Dr. Noramin shared was a collective of dance materials written by our people. However, he described it as a cautionary tale as it showed parallels between what was happening then and today. The dance material published in 1934 was a cartoon that displayed dance forms and had differences in the first and second images. For instance, the ways the male and female dancers were touching, their costumes, and more. It was also accompanied with phrases in Jawi such as “Zaman aku dahulu beginilah orang-orang muda yang handalan” (During my era back then, this is how talented youths were) and also “Tetapi zaman ini beginilah pula perubahannya” (However, in this era, this is the change). Hence, this points to how even in the 1930s, there were already concerns about Malay dance itself.
Next, Dr. Noramin touched on the Malaya Borneo Exhibition (1922), a precursor of urban entertainment parks known as Taman Hiburan, such as New World (1923). He shared how Malay dancers were co-opted into these spaces, and they were like human zoos, recreating the setting of a particular group of people and their daily lives. Hence, to appear mighty, there is a need to show diversity. Therefore, it boasts many entertainment forms from different areas such as Borea from Penang, Menora from Kelantan, popular Ronggeng girls, and more.
Towards the end of his lecture, Dr. Noramin discussed the ronggeng/joget girls. In the coming of the Malay(an) nationalism, Dr. Noramin purposely uses the (an) parenthesis as there were differing views of how Malaya should be. For example, some believed in Malay supremacy, multicultural Malaya, the extension of Muslim brotherhood, and more. For every differing faction of belief, each had its own ways of policing the different bodies of women, which led to the “Death of the Ronggeng Girl”, as they were described to be prostitutes and putting our culture to shame. However, Dr. Noramin shared how people failed to understand that Ronggeng girls were career women who were majority single mothers fending for their families. The ronggeng wage was one of the best for women at that time. Furthermore, many actresses during this golden era of cinema started as ronggeng girls, including Habsah Buang. In her oral history, she had even taught ronggeng to Shanghainese girls working in cabaret halls because the patrons in the cabaret halls wanted to ronggeng with them. Similarly, the ronggeng girls had tweaked their costumes to make a slit in their batik sarongs, similar to the Shanghainese costumes.
However, Dr. Noramin shared how the death of the ronggeng girl led to ronggeng becoming a co-ed activity for both males and females to do it together. Two book manuals, “Pengolahan Musik dan Tari Melayu” (1961), that Mohd Zain Hj. Hamzah arranged and “Chara Menari Ronggeng dan Mak Inang” (1965) featured floor patterns and advice on dancing which made ronggeng more accessible to be done by any individual who wanted to dance ronggeng. Hence, this encouraged the two genders to dance together without the ronggeng girl.
Lastly, to conclude his lecture, Dr. Noramin shared an online platform, “Arkitari”, for viewers to look for further resources to better understand Malay dance. He also shared an online portal called “Ronggeng Revival Singapura” that viewers could visit to view efforts being made to encourage discussions between musicians, dancers, and more, about the possibility of reviving ronggeng in Singapore.
A closing Q&A followed the fifth and final webinar of WWS in 2022, moderated by Miss Liyana Nasyita, addressing several questions posed by the virtual audience tuned into the webinar via Zoom and Facebook Live.
WWS comprises a series of webinars to encourage the development of new and alternative approaches to understanding Malay history, economy, politics, society, and culture. Beyond the clichés and convenient, mainstream narratives lie many lesser-known facts about the Malay community in Singapore.
The 2022 season comprises five different speakers delivering exciting topics on legacy discourse. Participants who register and attend via Zoom for all five sessions are issued a Certificate of Attendance. WWS webinars are available in either English or Malay.
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