ARI Working Paper Series

On the evening of 20 September 1969, the newly-opened Jakarta Arts Centre, Taman Ismail Marzuki, was the site for a performance of the Jakarta Malay folk theatre form known as lenong. The play performed on this occasion was Nyai Dasima, the tragic tale of a young woman who is said to have been murdered on the banks of the Ciliwung River in 1813, not far from the site of the 1969 performance. The audience for the performance was made up of both the “real Betawi”, the (by that time) marginalised descendants of the city’s original inhabitants whose community gave birth to lenong in the 1920s, and those Jakartans who would soon be the bearers and beneficiaries of New Order modernisation, the “people from brick houses”.

This paper reflects on the elements at work in this performance, which saw the folk art and folklore of the metropolis staged in an environment which symbolised the city’s incipient modernisation. It suggests that in this performance, the professionalisation of folk theatre stands alongside the ritual enactment of community, marking a moment of transition in the life of the metropolis and its people.