JOGED DANCE IN YOUTUBE Kadek Suartaya I Made Suastika I Wayan Dibia Anak Agung Gde Putra Agung ISI Denpasar/e-mail: rector@isi-dps.ac.id Abstract In Indonesia Joged Bumbung is a dance which was created in Bali; it is known as tari pergaulan, namely, a social dance which is performed to make friends; however, it has innovated so freely that it becomes a dance with pornographic movements presented vulgarly. The recording of such a dance can be easily watched in YouTube; it can also be easily watched in shared video web sites, through which the users can download, watch and share different video clips free of charge. The problems of the present study are (1) what is the negative impact of the pornographic joged dance on the aesthetic values of Joged Bumbung; (2) how negatively people view the dancers and group of such a pornographic joged dance; (3) how negatively people view the Balinese cultural art resulting from the fact that such a pornographic joged dance has been uploaded in YouTube? The main objective of the present study is to identify the negative impact of the pornographic joged dance in YouTube. The data were collected through observation, interview, and library research. The collected data were then analyzed descriptively and qualitatively using the phonological theory; and the qualitative method is used. It can be concluded that the pornographic joged is still watched in different parts of the island; it is watched every night. The government, art observers, and the society’s leaders are anxious about the negative impact of such a joged dance on those who are involved in its performance. Therefore, the Bali government has persuaded the dancers and groups that are involved in the performance of such a joged dance to return to the ethical choreography of the performing art of Joged Bumbung. The government has directly met them for this purpose; however, what has been done has not been successful yet. There were three negative impacts of such a joged dance presented in YouTube. They are (1) the art value of the Joged Bumbung dance has become degraded; (2) the dancers have been immorally justified; and (3) the Balinese art and culture have been distorted. Keywords: joged, pornographic, YouTube. Introduction When you open the internet and search out YouTube: joged Bali, you will get surprised that what you watch is such an Indonesian social dance is performed to inspire sexual desire. It is performed by several young women who wear the Balinese identity-showing costume; they open the fabric they wear, expose their thighs, and serve the men who dance with them one by one with pornographic actions, and are watched by both young and old viewers. It has been presented on the on line media for the last 10 years. The Bali government has taken persuasive steps that the joged dance should be performed politely; however, it has not been successful yet. In some parts of Bali, it is so popular that the people refer to such a joged dance as joged YouTobe; it is still presented until now. The joged dance is very popular in Bali. There are several varieties of the Joged dance, but the most popular one is the Joged Bumbung dance. Such a dance is generally performed with free, active, and dynamic movement patterns (Dibia, 1999: 39). It is generally performed as an amusing performance in secular propane events. In Bali there are many groups of Joged Bumbung; some are protected by the villages where they exist and as independent art groups. One group is usually made up of 15 persons, 10 or 12 are males and are the gamelan players and three are females and the dancers. It is important to have beautiful dancers in the Joged Bumbung dance. However, recently something has been added, that is, the dancers should be brave enough to make unsteady ‘jaruh’ movements (in the Balinese language, jaruh is equivalent to being pornographic). The braveness and vulgarity of the dancers are so dominant that the Joged Bumbung groups which maintain the performing aesthetics and ethics are scarcely invited to perform. On the other hand, more and more people have invited the groups or the dancers who are brave to show pornographic and vulgar movements. The phenomenon of the pornographic joged is responded by the development in the globalized technology. The technology of the recording media and the technology of telecommunication have made the interaction among people from different parts of the world easier. The intimacy with the internet and the sophistication of the recording media have also contributed to the presentation of the Balinese pornographic joged dance in YouTube with an average duration of three or five minutes. According to Atmaja (2010: 261), the pornographic joged is moved by the invisible puppeteer, namely, the system of capitalistic capitalism and the market ideology which is the golden product of globalization. Research Method The existence of the pornographic video can also be explored from the commercial VCD recording which is freely sold in Bali both in the urban area and rural area as well as from YouTube. The actions made by the pornographic joged can also be watched from the direct performance. North Bali has many groups of the pornographic joged. The VCD with the sensational topic “Joged Goyang Maut” in 2002 was predicted to be performed by a joged group from Padangbulia Village, Buleleng. Many people know that such a joged dance has also been performed by the groups in the other regencies. Blahkiuh village, Badung Regency, for example, has a Joged Bumbung group whose dancers are brave enough to show vulgar actions. When they were interviewed, they said that they showed such movements unconsciously; they said that they had been possessed by a spirit. The phenomenon of the pornographic joged which was uploaded in YouTobe was identified through direct observation and in-depth interviews in which the interviewees were the dancers and the gamelan players as well as some representatives of the viewers. Discussion Conceptually, the word porno means absence. The word porno, which is frequently referred to as pornography, is a form of behavior which is erotically shown to inspire sexual desire or any material which is intentionally and only designed to inspire sexual desire (Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, 1999: 696). Pornography roughly represents or shows obscene, especially the human sexuality; it is created with fantasy as the objective (Blackburn, 1994: 293). The pornographic or vulgar joged, according to the Balinese people, is a joged dance which shows the movements which are beyond the norms referred to in the Balinese performing arts as the movements made by the hip (ngegol) and the repeated backward and forward movements (the Balinese word for that is ngangkuk). The joged dance, as a genre of the old performing art, is mentioned in the Bali cultural art books. The book entitled Dance and Drama in Bali (1973), which was written by Beryl de Zoete and Water Spies, discusses the joged dance with its function as a social dance which the rural people like very much. The book entitled Kaja and Kelod, which was written by I Made Bandem and Fredrik Eugene, gives useful information on the joged dance during the colonial era. In the Bali royal era, the joged performing art was controlled by the king and other noblemen. A Dutch health worker, Dr. Yacobs, described what he viewed in the joged dance which was performed in 1881 in a palace in Bali (Bandem, 1981: 126-127). Yacobs was highly surprised that when the dancers, who were young girls, finished dancing, they approached the royal guests and were ready to serve “what was particularly assigned to them”. Those who were the royal joged dancers felt extraordinarily proud; in addition, their families were also proud as well. Apart from that, they were also the idols of their societies. Their lives were guaranteed and their families were provided with rice fields to cultivate. In the past, during the era of kingdom and when women were regarded as being inferior, the joged dance was also performed to amuse males. However, era has changed and shifted. Women are treated as they are. That is expected from the joged bumbung by the cultural observers and the leaders of the Balinese society (Bali Post, 2002). However, the current problem is that when globalization dominates; when the boundaries among nations are widely opened; when people live permissively; when technology develops with its negative and positive impacts, the joged Bumbung, as one of the cultural aesthetic expressions of the Balinese people, has been trapped in a humiliated condition; it has been exposed freely in the internet by the development in the on line media of YouTube. Ethno-aesthetically, the joged Bumbung dance is an art expression which should be appreciated. However, now there are many joged bumbung groups who show their pornographic movements and actions, making them humiliated. Ironically, although they are humiliated morally, religiously, and aesthetically, the pornographic movements they show, have turned out to make them able to earn money easily. The mocking criticism given by many people has turned out to make them more popular; more and more people want them to perform the dance. There are no performances without pornographic movements and actions. The Joged Bumbung performing art with pornographic movements and actions which are regarded as being erotic seem to be always blamed, as facing what is called the fruit of simalakama. Being brave to present erotic movements means that more and more people want the dancers of such a dance to dance but they are humiliated by many people. If they are not brave enough to present erotic movements, nobody will want them to perform it but no negative response is given to them; nobody will watch them. Such things, if defined, reflect collisions, offering and bargaining, and withdrawing and extending the instable values in the current society. Actually, sexual desire is not only identical with the Joged Bumbung dance. A similar thing can be found in an Indonesian dance which is similar to the Joged Bumbung. The tayub performance, a dance which is performed in Central Java, will never be complete if pengibing (the male dancer) does not touch the female dancer’s bra with a reason that he intends to insert some money to the tayub dancer’s breast. Even the ronggeng and dombred dances, which are performed in West Java, are more immoral. In the past, especially in Kerawang and Indramayu, the dancers were generally still very young; however, they were allowed “to dance with” more intimately. Conclusions and Suggestions The pornographic joged dance presented in YouTube can be analogized as the fire and the smoke. The fire is the dance itself as it is empirically real. The smoke rises with pungent smell and immorality in YouTube. Although it is not real and invisible, it really reaches every part of the world. It explores so wide space and both the people living in Bali and those living in the other parts of the world internally view it as something which is negative. The dancers and the Balinese cultural art are also negatively viewed. Therefore, three negative impacts and views were withdrawn from the pornographic joged presented on YouTube. The three negative impacts and views are as follows. First, the negative impacts and views resulting from the presentation of the pornographic joged on YouTube are that the values of the beauty of the performing art and gamelan connote comberan. In other words, it should function as the performing art which strengthens togetherness in the social interaction, but the fact shows that it is performed as an immoral thing. Second, the dancers of such a dance which is presented in YouTube are humiliated by many people. As the art figures, they are justified as if they only took the opportunity available to them. Third, the pornographic joged which is presented in YouTube has also led to an anxiety that the lay people from the other parts of the world will generalize that Bali is identical with pornography. There is, once again, there is an anxiety that those who are not familiar with the Balinese cultural art, or those who only watch the pornographic joged presented in YouTube, will raise a question: is the Balinese cultural art so vulgar and banal? It is here that an anticipative strategy is needed as a response to the need for the reposition of the Joged Bumbung dance in the more civilized cultural space. The cultural reposition which should be strongly held is that such a dance should give priority to aesthetics and ethics and the erotic favor added to the performance should politely entertain the viewers. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Through this opportunity, allow me to thank the supervisors such as I Made Suartika, I Wayan Dibia, and Anak Agung Gde Putra Agung and the E-Journal of Cultural Studies which publishes this article. A word of appreciation should also go to the informants of the study. References Atmaja, I Negah Jiwa. Modifikasi Tubuh Perempuan: Joged “Ngebor” Bali. Program Studi Magister dan Doktor Kajian Budaya Universitas Udayana dan Pustaka Larasan. Denpasar, 2010. Bandem, I Made dan Frederik deBoer. Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Transition. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1981. Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994. deZoete, Beryl ; Spies, Walter. Dance and Drama in Bali. 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