Falling in love with Mak Yong at first dance
MALAYSIANSKINI | Mak Yong dancer Siti Nasirah Pauzi has been spellbound by the captivating allure of the art from the moment she first stepped onto the stage to perform.
Its graceful movement, expressive gestures, well-crafted story-telling, and compelling rhythmic music tapped into a part of her that allowed her to easily express her emotions, tell stories, and connect with her audience on a deeper level.
“Mak Yong grew in my heart. In the Kelantan dialect, we call it ‘angin’.
“The first time I performed Mak Yong, I instantly fell in love and starting from that day, I continued to follow my heart to perform Mak Yong,” Nasirah told Malaysiakini...
MALAYSIANSKINI | Mak Yong dancer Siti Nasirah Pauzi has been spellbound by the captivating allure of the art from the moment she first stepped onto the stage to perform.
Its graceful movement, expressive gestures, well-crafted story-telling, and compelling rhythmic music tapped into a part of her that allowed her to easily express her emotions, tell stories, and connect with her audience on a deeper level.
“Mak Yong grew in my heart. In the Kelantan dialect, we call it ‘angin’.
“The first time I performed Mak Yong, I instantly fell in love and starting from that day, I continued to follow my heart to perform Mak Yong,” Nasirah told Malaysiakini.
Nasirah, 36, has been performing Mak Yong since she was 20.
The late Khatijah Awang was greatly admired for her remarkable talent and contribution to keeping Mak Yong's art alive, and Nasirah was enamoured with her talent.
“I idolise Khatijah and I always listen to her voice through the recording of her performance on YouTube,” she said.
Khatijah, also known as Mak Yong Primadonna, was a performer of Siamese-Malay descent who won numerous accolades.
Determined to preserve Mak Yong's culture for the future generation, she and her husband created their own group Kumpulan Seri Temenggung (KST) to teach future generations to love Mak Yong.
Nasirah said that by watching Khatijah, she eventually learnt the finer points of singing, acting and dialect and introduced those elements to her performance.
Background
Mak Yong is a traditional performance with the elements of dance, music drama and comedy that is presented in the form of a temporary stage which means they always move to another stage.
The dance form's origin dates back to the ancient kingdom of Pattani during the reign of the Queen of Pattani in the 16th century.
Mak Yong also exists in Sumatra and the Riau islands. In Malaysia, the dialogue used in the show is the Kelantan dialect from Pattani. The traditional instruments used are the rehab, gendang ibu, gendang anak, tetawak, serunai, and canang.
There are 12 main stories told from generation to generation and which are used in Mak Yong performances.
The actors formed of young women that even take man and woman roles except for the comedy character that is known as peran.
Mak Yong initially featured only women actors and dancers because back in the day during the Malay sultanate, the kings do not want the queens or princesses to fall in love with the dancers when they were out of state for work.
According to Nasirah, now only male dancers can do open performances while female dancers can only perform closed and limited performances due to the Syariah-complaint policies in Kelantan.
Nasirah, who is a Mak Yong dancer under Kelantan National Department for Culture and Arts (JKKN) said it took four years for her to finally master the Mak Yong before she was allowed to perform in front of an audience.
“During that apprenticeship, I learnt everything about Mak Yong including the introduction of the art, the dialect, the acts and many more,” Nasirah said.
Mastering Mak Yong was not hard for Nasirah since she originated from Kota Bharu but she said those who are not Kelantanese might face a challenge.
“It is hard for non-Kelantanese to master Mak Yong because the performance is in old Kelantanese dialect,” she said.
No initiative to keep art alive
The declining recognition of Mak Yong in recent times disappoint Nasirah, saying that the government did not take active steps to preserve the beauty of this traditional art form.
After the pandemic Covid-19, Nasirah hardly gets to perform in front of big audiences because of the Syariah-compliant that is enacted in Kelantan.
The regulations removed elements of the dance that were against Islamic teachings and only allowed the same-gender ensemble on stage.
“There are maybe only two to three performances per year because in Kelantan, they only allow the Syariah-compliant only, so the male dancers are mostly performing in front of the audiences.
“Meanwhile, the women are mostly only doing the very basic introduction of Mak Yong on the JKKN Tiktok account,” said Nasirah.
According to her, JKKN used to go on a Mak Yong tour around the country but sadly, it ended permanently even though it is a great way to preserve the beauty of the traditional art.
“We can do collaborations with students before the performance and even we can teach them about Mak Yong so they know what the performance is about.
“We can even bring them on the stage to join the show,” Nasirah said.
She urged the authorities to actively support and promote Malaysia’s traditional performance to protect the cultural heritage and prevent it from demising.
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