Poja and Petenun

Selangor boasts having two traditional dances. They are known as the Poja and Petenun. These dances are quite famous in the villages at the Sabak Bernam district. The Bugis community had introduced both dances.

Poja is a palace dance and is always performed first as a welcoming dance for guests and royalty. This dance is performed with a bowl filled with a mixture of flowers and leaves such as pandan leaves, bougainvilleas, frangipanis and ‘bunga jejarum’. This mixture is known as the ‘bunga rampai’ and is scattered around the performance space and into the audience as the dance progresses. In this dance, a series of smooth hand and arm gestures are performed while kneeling down facing the audience with the hips swaying from side to side. Fingers must be curled back as much as possible.

The Petenun dance movements were inspired by the routine gestures of the Bugis women in the act of weaving. The hand movements in this dance are exaggerations of a weaver’s hand movements including opening and tying the threads as well as straightening and weaving silk threads forward, backward and side to side in a continuous flow. Just like Poja, this dance includes swaying of the hips as well as kneeling on the ground and facing the audience while dancing.

Accessories worn for both these dances are ‘sanggul lintang’ and ‘bunga merak’ for the hair, a necklace and big cuffs for the wrists. A yellow top called ‘bodo’ is to honour the royal history of this dance. It is paired with a sarong, known as ‘kain pelekat’.

Find out more about the various traditional dances of the different states of Malaysia in the book Dansa – A Dance Journey by Sasha Bashir, now available in bookstores.

by Prema Jayabalan