Sisingaan is art performance from Subang Jawa
Barat, also known as Gotong Singa or Singa Depok. It was a famous art
performance in the Subang area, especially in Pantura (Pantai Utara Jawa / north
Jawa Barat) such as Pamanukan, Indramayu, and Karawang.
Sisingaan means a fake lion. An artificial
lion. In Bahasa Indonesia lion means singa, the Si word that is repeated twice, and
a comment behind indicates a fake character or pretend situation in the Sundanese
language. So, Sisingaan is an acculturation word from Bahasa Indonesia and
Sundanese language.
It's performed by 4 (or more) men carrying the sitting lion doll, they walk around the village followed by
their family and neighborhood, and they also dance following the music rhyme.
At some point, the men will stop walking and perform their dance to
entertain the viewers.
For Sisingaan, they used Sundanese traditional
music, but for Sisingaan followers, they used dangdut music. So with the costumes, the boy who rode Sisingaan would
wear Sundanese traditional costumes and the men would wear uniforms, such
a modification design from Sundanese traditional costumes.
Commonly Sisingaan is performed to celebrate
khitan, a Muslim tradition of remarked boy's maturity by circumcision. But,
nowadays not only boys can ride Sisingaan, but adults can be, even
sometimes they (adults) are the boy's parents. In some regional anniversary
events, the leader would ride Sisingaan to be seen by people.
Sisingaan didn't come out by itself or suddenly
created, there is a reason behind his genesis. In the 1800s, while the Dutch (Holland)
and England still being an alliance, Subang was under their authority. They
built a planter community named P & T Lands, in daily The Dutch managed
the politics and England managed the economy of that company.
Because of the double ownership of P & T
Lands, a lot of Subang people live miserably. That condition made them
suffer and released an unsatisfied atmosphere in Subang. Then, they created
Sisingaan to tease the colonizer.
The lion itself was chosen as a symbol of
colonizers, Dutch and England, that's why in every Sisingaan performance at
least they performed 2 lions. The boy who rides Sisingaan is a joke of the colonizer,
representing the rude ambitions of squeezing a resource that isn't theirs.
In the beginning, Sisingaan was created as a
disjunctive symbol for teasing the colonizer, but it grew into a
folk culture of Subang. Even now Sisingaan is the main performer at Subang
annual events.
Like other folk cultures, the tradition has
been changed and modified depending on the situation. So with it. Nowadays Sisingaan
form isn't only about a lion, it has transformed into the other form that
people see on Television.
In North Subang, especially in the Pantura area.
Sisingaan can be found in abstract, weird, and odds versions. It still has a
lion head but with a tiger stripe body, horsetail, and bird wings, or a dragon
head with a cow body and dragon tail in missy patterns.
That transformation can't be separated from
the ancient folk culture (another folk culture) that appeared even
before Sisingaan itself. That ancient folk culture has acculturated with Sisingaan
in different tastes.
No matter how far Sisingaan has changed,
it still is the disjunctive folk culture of Subang that was raised by the era.
(picture source: www.google.com)
