RESEARCH AND PRECEDENCE STUDIES

JUST DANCE

For my idea on "Preservation of Dance in Malaysia" I had to do a lot of deep research into the dance steps. This was a challenge since I am from Botswana,so the whole experience is new.  I meet up with the malay dance society of Multimedia University during their practicing hours. The group is called Sakti.
I got to see live performances of Joget,Inang and Zapin. Also I got to interview their dance instructor Nur Azalan who was very helpful.

From the interview I learnet that the Zapin dance is a more of a form of "play dance." This means the performance is done in a narrative way telling a story. This dance is done in pairs of male and female. A unique thing about this dance is the elegance and the swaying of hands. There is no physical contact of the men and women but that doesnt ditort the message at all,in fact it makes the dance even more enduring.
Joget is more of a courship dance of the male inticing the female. The steps are in a 8 and 16 step of the feet. As Mr Azalan explained the movement is in a swaying way. The hands,made into a fist, move up and down on the side at chest level. The introduction starts with an 8-count motion of the legs. The dance steps the left leg,then the right leg,extending to the side.

This motion is repeated 3 times. From here the dancer combines the swaying of the hands and the 8-count step of the feet moving forward. In this step the dancer moves forward and backwards as in a circle,repeating the motion.

The following step the dance starts if off with the back of their foot on the ground and the toes lifted up. They move forward doing the 8-16 count step and at this step they lift their foot as they move forward.