Saman Dance is a traditional dance of the Gayo Lues tribe, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, created by a respected cleric, Sheikh Saman in the 14th century. Before being recognized as an intangible world cultural heritage by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, this dance has an interesting story that needs to be known.
In the beginning, this dance was just a folk game called Pok Ane which means clapping hands while singing. Pok Ane is often played by teenage boys to spend time after school, recite and work in the fields.
Since Islam began to spread in Tanah Rencong, Pok Ane experienced rapid development. The dance began accompanied by the chanting of the poems containing praise to the God. Not only that, this dance was also used as a propaganda tool to spread Islam.
The Saman dance is often likened to the Ratoek Dueh dance, when in fact the two dances are actually different. The main difference is the player; Ratoek Dueh dance is played by women with even numbers, while Saman is played by men with an odd number of players.
The poetry used is also different, Saman uses the Gayo language with a sheikh in the middle of the dancer's formation. While the Ratoek Dueh dance uses Acehnese language with two Syahi (poet singers) who are outside the dancer's arrangement.
Unlike the Ratoek Dueh dance which has simple movements and accompanied by Rapai, Acehnese traditional musical instruments, Saman is divided into a number of movements, namely, rumbling, ringing, greeting, song reunion, song, song, and cover without any accompanying music.
Another striking difference lies in the costume. The clothes worn by Saman dancers are filigree-patterned pockets with black and red, white, yellow and green as their motives. The costume is equipped with a headband, teleng head which is given a leaf.
The dance which was recorded as breaking the MURI record with the largest number of dancers in 2017 was once only performed in certain events, such as traditional events and celebrations of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. However, as its development, this dance began to often be staged to entertain guests at weddings, circumcision, Hajj or Umrah, and other large events.
This dance, which was banned in the Dutch colonial era, was not merely entertainment, but also as a medium to arouse young people's fighting spirit because it contained a strong moral message.
The verses of the poetry that were sung were a sign of gratitude for the blessings given by Allah SWT. Indirectly this dance teaches how important togetherness, kinship, cohesiveness, and courage.
author : https://rudiruzt.blogspot.com
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Culture and Art