By Rivaldi Ihsan
This Sunday afternoon, the city of Padangpanjang was rained on relentlessly until 7.30pm. A series of odd semester final exam activities on the ISI Padangpanjang campus have been carried out. One of them is the dance study programme conducting the final exam of the dance composition semester. The exam performance starts from 20-26 December 2018. On Sunday night, the dance composition exam took place at the Boestanoel Arifin Auditorium building.
Participants in the dance composition exam consisted of fifth-semester 2016 students. There is also an understanding that dance composition is a dance work with a theme about social phenomena or the empirical experience of the choreographer into a theme. Of course, the dance work consists of arrangements of movements that tell a story according to the choreographer's idea of creation with dance music accompaniment as a support for the atmosphere of the performance.
The fifth semester exam of dance composition performance is a compulsory course exam for dance students as a follow-up to the main capital to get to the final project of dance art creation or dance art study. Exactly at 20.00 pm the performance was opened by two hosts, a man and a woman. The hosts thanked the examining lecturers, exam participants, and the audience who were present this evening.
The host also invited the first dance composition performance entitled Mendodos, choreographed by Wilda Ayu. The synopsis of Wilda Ayu's dance creation idea stems from the social phenomenon of the Ujung Gading community in West Pasaman. Where the author is interested and inspired by the activity of mendodos or taking fruit from oil palm trees. The togetherness of fellow farmers is intertwined in working so as to make the work quickly finished, the spirit increases if the work is done together while joking occasionally.
In the first part of the performance, the lights were extinguished while the sound of a cock crowing signalled morning. For Ujung Gading farmers, morning is the routine to start harvesting palm trees. This morning's event begins with a male dancer entering the performance arena carrying a stick while moving slowly from the centre of the stage. Then to the right and left corners of the performance stage while observing which palm trees are worth harvesting and which are not worth harvesting. When the male dancer observed the palm fruit, he was followed by two male dancers to dance together.
The two male dancers also carry two sticks to be used to harvest the palm fruit. During the first part of the performance the three men moved together in horizontal, diagonal and circular positions. The music that accompanied the three dancers was a programme music composition that sounded melancholic with natural nuances. To emphasise the intensity and dynamics of the performance, percussion instruments such as gandang tambua and wood blocks were used to maintain the tempo during the performance.
The next performance three female dancers dressed in green entered the performance arena. The women's clothing worn by all green-coloured dancers presents the impression of refreshing nature, awakening self-energy, bringing calm, balancing emotions, and natural atmosphere. The impression of green clothes always illustrates how the situation of the feelings of palm tree farmers who are actually deprived in the life of their family needs. But faced with full of energy and enthusiasm in this life.
The second part of the performance depicts the atmosphere of the farmer's daily routine. How male dancers and female dancers perform movements simultaneously in a regular manner with horizontal and diagonal floor patterns. The movement of the dance performance tells about the agreement between fellow dancers. The movement illustrates the question and answer communication of fellow dancers' movements for the division of tasks. Male dancers mendodos palm trees while female dancers take the harvest of palm trees using black buckets.
The third part of the performance depicts the habits of the Ujung Gading farming community, namely mendodos while joking between jobs. The six dancers joke around using Mandailing language. Three male dancers poke the palms while three women pick up the palm fruits that have fallen from the tree and put them in each woman's bucket. For farmers, joking is useful to relieve fatigue after a full day's work in the oil palm plantation.
Choreographer Wilda Ayu tries to reinterpret the behaviours of the palm tree farming community in Ujung Gading. She tries to present these behaviours with newly composed dance movements on the stage. However, there are some things that need to be considered by the choreographer. It was seen that some dancers were careful in their movements for fear of making mistakes. In addition, the lack of compatibility of fellow dancers was seen occasionally in the second and third parts of the movement.
Overall, the mendodos dance performance this evening was quite satisfying, the message of mendodos palm trees reached the audience. How the process of picking fruit from the palm trees in Ujung Gading Pasaman was re-presented in the form of a new dance performance. The empirical experience of the choreographer using the method of movement exploration and interpretation wrapped in programme music really presents a dance composition performance that attracts the attention of the audience.