Dr Felicia Hughes-Freeland, a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology in the University's School of the Environment and Society, has been researching performance dance in Indonesia since 1982. Her book, Embodied Communities: dance traditions and change in Java (Berghahn 2008), follows two internationally renowned films and many academic publications about the transformation of Javanese court dance, based on original research and fieldwork between 1982 and 1999.

Court dance in Java, particularly the performance repertoire of the Kasultanan court in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, has its origins in colonial ceremonial tradition, but is now mainly performed as a national art form.

Dr Hughes-Freeland said: "It has been fascinating to explore how Javanese dance has been transformed over the last 25 years by changing social values, religion, philosophy, and commoditization arising from tourism.

"It also raises questions about the theorization of culture, society and the body during a period of radical change."

Dr Hughes-Freeland's research uses a range of methodologies, including participant observation, visual methods, archive research and interviews, to explore Javanese dance in relation to the construction of the past and the role of colonial practices in postcolonial cultural politics.

She says: "Indonesia encompasses over 17,000 islands and over 700 languages. It's a fantastically plural society and is often referred to as the crossroads of the world. First there was 'Sanskritisation' as the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism spread from the 5th century, then traders brought Islam, missionaries brought Christianity, and the Dutch East India Company, which was the first global business, brought Western interests to the region.

"Although the rulers of Java, Sumatra and other islands gradually began borrowing some of the trappings of Hindu culture, there is no evidence to suggest that the court dance tradition is in any way connected to this. Personally, I imagine that the tradition stems from Javanese village life, where dancing was associated with spirit cults and well-being."

The repertoire provides training in physical behaviour and etiquette, and cultivates self-discipline and spiritual balance. The Javanese cultural system has different codes of politeness that are expressed through language and body movements. The different nuances affect every aspect of Javanese social life and define a person's social status in relation to the person he or she is addressing.

"If you can use language and gestures in a way that's approved, as in the dance repertoire, you immediately gain a social power that can be of great use, and there are many studies about how the Javanese cultural system can be used to lever an advantage," explains Dr Hughes-Freeland, "But while the use of language has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, the way in which dance and movement creates social identity in Indonesia has not been the subject of research, until now."

Dr Hughes-Freeland's research focuses on the dance traditions of the Javanese province of Yogyakarta, the only province in Indonesia that is still based on the boundaries of a colonial principality, and its Governor is a direct descendant of the first Sultan.

"Yogyakarta is not an ancient court," explains Dr Hughes-Freeland, "It was founded in the mid 18th Century as a result of internal frictions in the central Javanese kingdom of Mataram. This resulted in a series of squabbles and insurrections that ultimately split the ruling family and that in 1755 led to the establishment of a second seat of power, the court of Yogyakarta."

Pictured right: The Sultan's Palace, the Golden Pavilion

"Indonesia is a rapidly developing society, but it is also a comparatively young country," says Dr Hughes-Freeland, "it didn't come into being as an independent country until 1949, when it won independence from the Dutch and unified the former Dutch East Indies into a single nation."

Indonesia's first President, Sukarno, helped the country to achieve independence. He conferred the status of Province on Yogyakarta in recognition of the Sultanate's support in the war of independence, but he favoured Balinese dance (as he was half Balinese) or the dances of the older court, in the city of Solo. When Suharto seized power and became President in 1966, he also favoured Solo-style court dance.

"Suharto's wife was related to the junior court in Solo, so she had a preference for the style of dance practiced in the Solo courts," says Dr Hughes-Freeland. "It was a more fluid, feminine style that contrasted sharply with the martial styles adopted by the sultan's court in Yogyakarta. But I was interested in the Yogyakartan style and tradition, and I've been working on that since 1982, although I also spent time in Solo and the province of Central Java."

However, during the 1970s and 80s, Yoygakarta's dance repertoire gained more recognition as a national tradition. Dr Hughes-Freeland explains: "Suharto was a Javanese born near Yogya province; he believed that Java was Indonesia's cultural heartland, and that Yogyakarta was the one source of national traditions that could be appropriated as representative of an Indonesian ideal. He also developed Yogya as the second tourist destination after Bali. The dance repertoire therefore has a political, cultural, historical and educational resonance, and it was certainly adopted as a nationalistic expression of Indonesian culture that lasted throughout Suharto's rule and beyond."

Despite the tradition apparently dating back to the court's establishment in 1756, Dr Hughes-Freeland does not believe that the repertoire performed today is necessarily the same as that performed 300 years ago. "The repertoire was passed on orally over the years and was not notated or written down until the 20th Century. Consequently, it is impossible for us to know for sure whether these Yogyakartan choreographies and the styles of dancing are the same as those performed centuries ago.

"After all, the repertoire was held up by the government as an exemplar of Indonesian heritage and tradition, so it is very likely to be a political interpretation of the tradition. I really wasn't expecting the tradition to continue after Suharto's fall in 1999, as young people today have so many options for their leisure time, but I'm delighted that it actually seems to be getting stronger, and not simply as a tourist attraction.

Caption:  The women's Bedhaya dance 

In May/June 2009, Dr Hughes-Freeland's photographs will be used as part of a British Museum exhibition about the Raffles gamelan, the set of traditional Javanese instruments that Sir William Stanford Raffles brought back to England  from Indonesia. During the exhibition, Dr Hughes-Freeland will also give a gallery talk,screen a film, and sign books.

For further information about Swansea University's School of the Environment and Society, please visit the School's website.