Gustine's Scribbles: Ramayana epic dance

Hinduism hold a colorful culture with its educative mythology. It is true to other believers, Hinduism is taken as something that they should not believe and practice, but from the time that Hinduism was known to have stories that somehow provide some positive teachings, many of those people still read and appreciate what were written by the ancient pious. And nowadays those stories are even presented in form of dances or theatrical dances or call it epic dance.

To this day, several countries in Asia like India, Thailand, Burma and even Indonesia preserve the stories of the characters in the Hindu mythology in dances and the most popular is the story of Ramayana, king of Astina and his queen Devi Sita (Bahasa Indonesia - Dewi Sita)

In Indonesia, in each year, one evening in a full-moon summer night, they used to organize a dance festival. And most of the time it is in Special Territory of Sultanate of Jogjakarta. They put up a stage platform with Prambanan Temple as the background. Sometimes, in that particular night, they show more than one version of the Ramayana myth performed by several dance groups from Java and Bali.

There were times when an international platform performance were organized when participants from the above-mentioned countries show their versions.

The dancers will gracefully narrate the story of a king who had a faithful wife who bore all the sufferings and humiliations as a woman. A story that nowadays many women are taking example from.