Klana Mask Dance, Traditional Dance From Cirebon

Cirebon mask dance is one of the traditional dances that come from Cirebon, including Indramayu, Losari, Jatibarang, and Brebes. This dance is one of the dances in Tatar Parahyangan. In Cirebon, mask dance is a lot of its kind, in terms of movement or story to be conveyed. Sometimes the mask dance will be played by a single dance dancer, or it can also be played by some dancers.



One of the kinds of mask dance that comes from Cirebon is the Klana mask dance. This Klana mask dance is a kind of another part of other Cirebon mask dance that is like Kung Wungu Topeng Dance. Sometimes these two mask dances are presented together and commonly referred to as klana kung wungu mask dance.



This Klana mask dance is a series of dance moves that tell the King Minakjingga (Klana) who is crazy about the beauty of the Queen Kencana Wungu, until then trying to get the idol of his heart. But his pursuit did not get results. The anger he could no longer hide then revealed all his bad temper. That would be the inspiration of Nugraha Soeradiredja when creating Klana Dance.



Basically, the shape and color of the mask will represent the character or character of the character being played. Klana, with masks and clothing dominated by red, represents a temperamental character. In this dance, Klana is a greedy, angry person, and can not keep the passions visualized into long, stomping movements of footsteps. His hands are also open and fingers are always clenched.



Part of his dance moves depicts someone who is dashing, angry, drunk, or laughing out loud. This dance can be combined with the rhythm of Gonjing which is then followed by Sarong Ilang. The pattern of dancing is similar to the other masks that consist of the part of the baksarai ( the dance that has not used the mask) and the ngedok (masked dance).



Before the end of this dance, the dancers will usually go around to guests who come to ask for money. He toured by way of masking the mask worn as a money container giving the audience. This section is called Ngarayuda or Nyarayuda, the symbol of the rich king and still does not feel sufficient with what he has, to continue to seize as much wealth from the small people without any rights.



Klana mask dance is sometimes referred to as rowana mask dance, which refers to the character of Ravana in the Ramayana story that has the same character. But this is clearly different because the character Rowana is in mask dance panji.