Cakalele Dance in Haruku Island, Central Maluku District

Cakalele dance is a traditional dance from Maluku Province that is performed by 30 people either male or female. Male dancers wear war clothes dominated by red and yellow color. Not only that, they also hold parang (swords) on the right hand and salawaku (shields) on
the left hand and don aluminium hats decorated with slipped feather on it.

Female dancers wear white dresses while holding handkerchiefs – in local language called lenso. During the performance, they play in groups consisting of two dancers while keeping dancing followed by the music of tifa (percussion), flute, and bia (flute made of big sea
shell).

Tari Kebesaran, another name of Cakalele Dance is commonly performed to welcome honoured guests such as religious scholars, and government officials visiting Maluku. Tari Kebesaran means the pride dance.

Distinctive Features

Some of the distinctive features of the dance are the clothes, the swords, and the shield (salawaku). Each of them has its meaning such as red clothes symbolizing heroism, bravery and patriotism of Maluku people. Likewise, the swords symbolize the dignity of Maluku people that must be kept. The last one is the shield (salawaku), the symbol of protest againsts injustice government.

Location

Cakalele Dance can be watched in Haruku Island, Central Maluku District, Maluku Province, Indonesia.

Access

Accessing the island from Ambon City, you can take public transportation passing by Tulehu with IDR 7500 for its cost. Then the trip must be continued by taking speedboat wading across Tulehu Strait to Haruku Island for about 30 minutes with IDR 30000 per person for
its cost.

Accommodation and other Facilities

Around the location, in Haruku Island, you can surely find some hotels or guesthouses and food stalls offering local cuisine of Central Maluku District.

Lion Dance in Singapore

The Lion Dance is a skilled combination of two dancers under the wraps! They remain anonymous hidden under the powerful skin of a lion!!

The Lion Dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture, in which performers mimic the lion's movements in a lion costume. It is the traditional dance of Singapore, which is recognized today as one of the world's modern metros with its huge shopping malls, busy harbors and tall skylines. Few know that the word Singapore or Singapuram literally means `Lion City’. As a city whose name is derived from the king of the jungle, its traditional dance form should also reflect some of the qualities of the animal it admires most.

The lion is obviously a large animal and it takes two dancers to fit into the costume. While the audience watch the lion energetically moving and shaking its head, opening its huge jaws and staring with bulging eyes, there are two dancers tucked inside the costume, one forming the back legs and the other the fore legs of the animal. This needs perfect synchronicity and rhythm. To complicate matters, the team sometimes moves between platforms of varying elevations. The sound of gongs, drums and firecrackers sets the pace for the dancers and makes the heart beat faster.

There are a number of Chinese Lion Dance styles but the two most popular Chinese lion dance styles are the northern and southern Lion Dance. The northern lion is usually red, orange, and yellow in color (sometimes with green fur for the female lion), is shaggy in appearance, with a golden head. The northern dance is very acrobatic and is mainly performed as entertainment. The southern lion dance is more symbolic in nature. It is usually performed as a ceremony to exorcise evil spirits and to summon luck and fortune. The southern lion exhibits a wide variety of color and has a distinctive head with large eyes, a mirror on the forehead, and a single horn at center of the head.

What do we see when we watch a Lion Dance performance? Do we see the lion or do we see the performer? Dance is a form of self expression and in most dance forms the dancers using their eyes, limbs and graceful movements tell a story or a tale and entrap the audience in their spell. How about a dance in which the dancer is never seen, entrapped as he is in a large costume? This is the uniqueness of the Lion Dance where the dancer entertains the audience. He feels the pulse of the audience, he can hear the applause, he can experience the movements of his co-dancer, but throughout this experience he remains anonymous.