Jatihlan 2015-01
KoreaMosaic Home Photos Home Country Photos Indonesia Indonesia Update January 2015	All photos on this page © 2015 John Holstein
The photos here were taken at three jatihlan performances, in the villages Ngentak Godean, Sedayu and Kesenian, all within 30 km west of Jogja. You can find an explanation and a video about jatihlan in Jatihlan in Kemesu. If you read the description first (below the video) you'll get more from the video.
Security guard casts a wary eye as his team set up for jatihlan. Most jatihlan spaces are about this area.
Villagers start to gather. A jatihlan that is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. usually doesn't begin till around 12.
At any jatihlan there will be as many visitors on the stage as musicians.
The jatihlan begins and continues for about an hour in an orderly fashion. The monotony of the music and their moves is supposed to induce a trance that will put them in touch with the spirits.
This guy is obviously an evil and unwelcome spirit.
These dancers with bells around their calves are different from those without in their role and the way they dance (you can see it in the YouTube video). When these guys enter, all sense of order (and monotony) is lost and it becomes a free-for-all.
Here you see the two main groups of dancers.
Today is the first time I've seen women taking this rougher, very demanding role.
About a half hour into it dancers start to get tired from their wild dancing in the mid-day heat.
This one has fallen into a trance.
In this village's jatihlan, after the dancers fall into their trance the jatihlan master enticed the spirit in the dancers--one by one--to come closer, and they fell on their knees before him. He then performed a short heebee-jeebee on them, placed a mask over their head, and released them from their spirit and trance. Every jatihlan is different except for the general frame.
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