Nowadays, many young people love to dance. At a glance, we can get the evidence from the increasing number of girl-bands and boy-bands in Indonesia. They entertain the society not only with their voices, but also with their dances. The dances they present in their performance are mostly a modern dance which is absolutely not a part of Indonesian culture. Furthermore, in society there are also an increasing number of modern dance communities, especially for the break-dance. An example can be taken from Kediri Regency, which is considered as a small country, there are more than three break-dance communities in that regency. However, there is a tendency that the increasing number of break-dance communities will displace the Indonesian dance. Therefore, in this paper, which is based on short observation, we will discuss more about the influence of break-dance and its position toward Indonesian traditional-new creation dance.
First, we will talk about what break dance is and where it came from. Based on Microsoftﾮ Encartaﾮ 2009, break dance is an acrobatic style of solo dancing to rap music, typically involving spinning of the body on the ground. Moreover, break dance is actually a branch of hip-hop which came from Bronx, a city in United States. In addition, based on the writer's interview with a break dance community, the person who does the break dance is called b-boy. The writer does not want to be sexist, but it is really called b-boy, even you are female. Moreover, those people who are interested to become a b-boy usually will gather in a community and have a self study of how to dance the break-dance appropriately among friends. An example can be taken from Kediri Rocking Reborn community in Kediri regency that the writer happened to have a chance to interview and observe them. This community is gathered every weekend in a public place called Simpang Lima Gumul Monument to learn together about the newest break-dance technique. They start to do the exercises and practice around 4 P.M but mostly other members usually come around 5 P.M. Furthermore, the members are varies from a little boy in the age of nine until young men in the age around 20 years old. Although this community is dominated with male, there are also some young women as the member of the community. From this short observation, we can simply think that this community offers freedom to the members. The only one thing which makes them become unite is the feeling of loving break-dance, perhaps.
Next, let us talk about Indonesian traditional-new creation dance. Based on Microsoftﾮ Encartaﾮ 2009, traditional means relating or based on the tradition. Therefore, the traditional-new creation dance here means the new creations of the Indonesian traditional dance. It means that there are artists making a new dance based on the traditional dance movement. The different between the new creation dances with the modern dances is that the traditional-new creation dances still use the traditional dance as the main sources of making new dances. Moreover, not only break-dance community, here the writer also have a short observation to the group of people who learned traditional-new creation dance in Kediri regency. It is a dance club named Sanggar Tari Kembang Sore in Kediri Regency. This dance club exercises every Sunday from 7.30 A.M to 5.30 P.M in a village public building. Furthermore, this dance club which is dominated with female students varies from the age of 3 to the age of 30 years old. It is also classified into some classes based on the age so that the students can learn better. The good thing in this dance club is that the students are having opportunity to become a dance trainer if they can pass a trainer examination held in Yogyakarta every period of time. The objective of holding this examination is to make traditional-new creation dance can be spread out faster and wider.
Moreover, in the correlation of modern break-dance with traditional-new creation dance is that the modern break-dance though it is something new which can enrich the Indonesian culture, it also makes the Indonesian dance, in this case of traditional-new creation dance, displaced. Furthermore, as an English language learner who has to learn the English culture, the phenomena of the increasing number of b-boy and break-dance communities happened in the society make the writer easier to experience a part of western culture. However, as a future language teacher, who has to introduce English culture whilst keeping the Indonesian culture stay alive, it will be hard to make the students aware of the important point of saving Indonesian heritage. It is because the media leads the young generation to think that modern break-dance is cooler than traditional-new creation dance. Furthermore, the hardest thing is to make the students' hearts move to keep Indonesian dance stays alive and not only regret and get angry when other countries claim Indonesian dance as them.
In addition, the influence of western culture in the form of modern break-dance in the society will make the foreigners who come to Indonesia cannot see clearly the Indonesian dance as a part of the Indonesian society. Then, there will be some confusion because the traditional and traditional-new creation dances will no longer able to represent Indonesian culture but just represents Indonesian life in the past time. Moreover, that is why the increasing population of modern break-dance communities is quite dangerous for Indonesian culture. As we know, the entertainment television programs nowadays are always looking forward to what is happening in the western country. An example can be taken from television programs which often show the modern break-dance performances; and it unconsciously helps the modern-break dance appears to be the coolest thing to be followed and learned. However, they forget to dig out what is good in our own country so that the great Indonesian dance is just buried away.
Then, the result for Indonesian society is that they will know the western culture better. Nevertheless, if we look further, we will see that actually learning traditional dance has many advantages such as the dancer will be more patient because when we dance a traditional or traditional-new creation dance, our soul will be in the peace state which is the same as we do a meditation. Not only make the soul become more peaceful, Kusumo (2004) as stated in Allo (2009) said that dancing used to be part of the education of an ideal character. In addition, for the Javanese, an ideal character would be one who can handle his emotion by having total control of his body movement and pattern of behavior. In the interpersonal relationship, the ideal character would always let the other person take the initiative, almost totally passive and be easily embarrassed if acted outside the norm.
Moreover, as a solution of the increasing number of modern break-dance community, it will be good if the media give more chance for the traditional and traditional-new creation dances to perform. It is because the writer considers the media as a powerful tool to lead the society into particular way of thinking. In addition, that will be good if there are more websites which explains and discuss about Indonesian traditional and traditional-new creation dance. The reason is nowadays there is just a few websites or blogs which discuss about Indonesian traditional and traditional-new creation dances so that the society finds difficulties when they want to know more about their own dances. Next, the government also has to facilitate and support the dancers to develop their skill. The facilitation and support can be in the form of holding traditional and traditional-new creation dance competition regularly with the nice reward for the winner; giving convenient place to practice; giving a set of gamelan and sound systems needed; and etcetera. Furthermore, if the advice is run well, hopefully the society will give more attention to the traditional and traditional-new creation dance, and want to learn it so that the Indonesian heritage can be keep safely.
In short, after knowing the origin of modern break-dance and traditional new-creation dance, we have a better knowledge of the position of modern break-dance in the Indonesian culture. Moreover, although it is good to have something new in our culture such as modern break-dance, it should not displace the Indonesian traditional and traditional-new creation dances. Furthermore, the media which is considered as the powerful tool to lead the society into a particular way of thinking should help the Indonesian dances to stay alive such as give the bigger portion for the traditional and traditional-new creation dances to perform than the modern break-dance. In addition, the government should give facilitation and support to the traditional and traditional-new creation dancers. Not only that, there should be more websites and blogs which discuss about Indonesian culture, especially traditional and traditional-new creation dances so that the society will get enough information when they want to know more about traditional and traditional-new creation dances. Thus, to avoid the confusion when Indonesian dances cannot represent the Indonesian society anymore; let us learn how to dance the Indonesian dance!
REFERENCES
Katherina Allo. 2009. Soul Searching - Shall We Dance? Tangerang: Pelita Harapan University
Microsoftﾮ Encartaﾮ 2009. ﾩ 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
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