Ronggeng Focus Group Discussions - Current Dance Practitioners

Ronggeng Revival Admin
Jul 23, 2022
2 min read

The objective of the Focus Group Discussion is to gather feedback from practitioners who have had engagement with Ronggeng as a social event or art dance, and/or cultural activists who are involved in matters of heritage and culture. The invitees were placed in groups and had a facilitator to guide them as they wrote their perspective in post-its and pasted it on mahjong papers. The invitees were responding to some general questions and after each respective question, the curator was tasked to initiate a dialogue based on what was written. The 2-hours sessions were conducted in both English and Malay simultaneously.

The questions included:

(1) In your perspective and lived experience, what is Ronggeng?

(2) What do you think is the perception of the community about Ronggeng?

(3) In your perspective, how important is it to recognise Ronggeng as an Intangible Cultural Heritage?

We provide a summary of the four Focus Group Discussions below:

Focus Group Discussion 3: Current Dance Practitioners (16 Feb 22)

Conversations with the current practitioners brought about questions on how the reimplementation of Ronggeng into the scene could further elevate the current progress and development of Singapore Traditional Malay dance form.

However, they collectively agreed that there is much sensitivity to be taken into consideration towards the approach of executing Ronggeng to the community. Tracing back the history of Ronggeng in the early 50s when it was largely active in the Ronggeng halls, it was regarded that the Ronggeng girls were exploited working women and this led to the negative stigma surrounding the Ronggeng culture.

Some suggestions are leaning more towards recognition rather than revival, due the existence of the form since the early 50s. The effort of reviving Ronggeng does not revolve only within the dance community but having the right media platforms to expose the Ronggeng culture to mass public. This has been proven during the early 80s, when SBC broadcasted the TV program called ‘Kelab Dondang Sayang’ and was well received during that time.