From Folk to National Popular Music: Recreating Ronggeng in Malaysia1

Abstract

The Malaysian social-dance music known as ronggeng underwent changes in style and performance contexts from the early twentieth century until the turn of the millennium. Ronggeng has been transformed from a folk genre of the Malay and Baba communities—performed by lower-class women who danced publicly with men and were, thus, looked down on as common by some sectors of the population—to a national form promoted by the Malaysian State, performed by and attracting audiences of different ethnic groups and classes. As ronggeng has become national, it has been “reconstructed” and “sanitized”; certain elements have been selected while other undesirable ones have been omitted, so that the music and dances of the new national ronggeng have become divorced from their folk forms and settings. An early version of this article was written when I was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the School of Music-Conservatorium, Monash University, March–May 2001. Thanks are due to Professor Margaret Kartomi for her comments on this article and for the help and hospitality she extended to my family during our stay at Melbourne. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Kartomi for bringing together an extraordinary group of music postgraduate students under her supervision when I was completing my doctoral dissertation at Monash University in the late 1980s. I benefited greatly from their sharp insights and intellectual support. It was through my interaction with them that I am able to adapt a multidisciplinary approach to ethnomusicology. Special acknowledgements are also due to Pak Mat Hashim, Pak Wan Pekak (deceased), Pak Aziz, Mak Ramlah, and June (deceased) who allowed me to follow them when they performed folk ronggeng in various parts of Penang. They taught me the music and allowed me to perform with them.