Where Dance Meets the Spirit World

Per JSTOR Daily, kuda kepang—a Javanese trance dance where performers enter altered states to channel spirits—has become a cultural flashpoint in Malaysia and Singapore. Dancers mounted on handcrafted bamboo hobbyhorses depend on a pawang, a ritual specialist who induces trances through chanting and incense to call spirits into their bodies. Yet local Islamic authorities have repeatedly warned that these supernatural elements contradict Muslim teaching. The deeper tension: Javanese migrants introduced the dance to Malaysia's Johor state from the nineteen-tens through the nineteen-thirties, but to assimilate in an increasingly Islamic society, many distanced themselves from practices tied to sorcery. In Singapore, kuda kepang has evolved differently—dancers of various ethnic backgrounds now perform it, blending it with other traditions like silat, a regional martial art. Some argue the form is compatible with Islam; others insist culture and religion must remain separate. As the dance spreads and transforms, it represents not the erasure of Javanese heritage, but its integration into a more complex, pluralistic understanding of what it means to be Malay.

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