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Islamic Periode

In the five hundred years from tile beginning of the Kediri period to the end of the Majapahit, it is obviouis that dancing developed well and very rapidly in Java. The dance however, was still restricted to 'the court of the king and the mansion of the nobility, which left its mark upon their character and nature. This does not mean, however,, that the common people did not have any dancing; go doubt they possesed folk dances but these would not have such high levels in aesthetic values and development as the court-dances.

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own, the Sunda style or West Java style. Thus it can be said that since the 16th century, there have been two styles of dancing in Java: the Java or Central Java style and the Sunda or West Java style.

East Java, which had once been the centre where the basis of Central Java culture was developed, went into eclipse after the fall of the kingdom of majapahit. This affected the development: of dancing in this region. After the collapse of Majapahit and the gradually shifting of the centre of Islamic kingdoms from East to Central Java, the dancing still developing in East Java was only folk dancing was not of such high quality and refinement as the art of the courts. In spite of this, remnants of past glories still exist in East Java dancing and, though not well cared-for, it has developed a character of its own differing from the style of Central Java.

The kingdom of Mataram was able for a fairly long time to resist the Dutch invasion, which took the form of a trade organization and settled in Indonesia since the beginning of the 17th century. Mataram, a feudal kingdom in its social structure made frequent efforts to rid Java of Dutch domination, But in 1743, Mataram had to make formal surrender to the Dutch East India Company. After 1743, the Dutch East India Company was the feudal lord of Mataram, while, conversely, Mataram was the feudal vassal of the Dutch East India Company.

In order to weaken Mataram, the Dutch divided it into two parts, the kingdoms of Surakarta and of Yogyakarta, under the Giyanti Agreement of 1755. This division wits followed by further splits. A few years after the Giyanti Agreement, the kingdom of Surakarta was subdivided into the kingdom of Surakarta and the smaller kingdom of Mangkunegaran. Then, in 1812, during the English occupation in Indonesia, the Yogyakarta kingdom was also split into the kingdom of Yogyakarta and the smaller kingdom of Pakualaman. Consequently, at the beginning of the 19th century, Mataram had been split tip into four.

In these four kingdoms dancing was carefully cultivated, but the division of Mataram also brought with it differences in style in Javanese dancing. However, although Mataram itself was divided into four at the beginning of the 19th century, the Javanese style (Central Java style) was only broken tip into two, namely, the Surakarta style and the Yogyakarta style.

Both the Surakarta style and the Yogyakarta style underwent rapid development between the second half of the 18th century and the second half of the 19th century. In this period both Surakarta and Yogyakarta styles produced three kinds of dance-dramas, the wayang wong, the langen driya and the langen mandra wanara.

Wayang wong is a dances-drama the dialogue of which is in Javanese prose and the stories or fragments of stories are taken from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Langen driya is a dances-drama the dialogue of which consists of Javanese songs telling the story of Damarwulan, a semi-historical narrative from the Majapahit period. Whereas langen mandra wanara is a dance opera telling the story of the Ramayana.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and the rapid progress of the Indonesian Nationalist Movement from the beginning of the 20th century towards liberation from colonioialism and the elimination of Dutch domination, also had a great effect on the development of Javanese dancing