Dimensions of Dance with Reference to Song Lyrics Karen Kartomi Thomas Improvisatory Processes and Practices in Indonesian Malay Mendu Theatre Performance

In Memory of Ivor Guest, Dance Historian Joint-Founder of the Society for Dance Research and of its Journal (14 April 1920 - 30 March 2018)

RESUMEN: In this article, I analyse the creative process of dance in Malay mendu theatre staged in Indonesia's northern Riau islands, based on fieldwork I conducted in 1984 and 2013. I describe and compare the four main motifs that made up most of the theatre's dances (referring specifically to upper body movements, the height of the forearms and hands, the direction of the eye gaze, the number of beats per movement), and deconstruct the five integrated, improvisatory mechanisms of the dance system (repetition, modification, retrogrades, looping, and controlled free-timing) by which actors generated their dances; thereby devising a choreology of Malay theatrical dance. Four performance parameters -motivic sequencing, improvisation, reflexive-cueing, and the dance-lyrics dynamic- were employed to guide and control these mechanisms. This case study aims to show how analyzing a creative dance method benefits from an ethnographic research approach. PALABRAS CLAVE: creative dance method, generative dance method, Indonesian Malay theatre performance, mendu theatre, improvisatory dance practices, system of dance