Genealogy of Mak Yong

Mak Yong, what its all about?

Mak Yong is traditional dance drama of Kelantan, Malaysia. According to UNESCO, Mak Yong appeared well before the Islamization of the country but was banned in the year 1991 after the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) took control of the state.

A ritual Mak Yong performance is more elaborate than that staged for entertainment, combining shamanism, feasting the spirits and dance theatre. It reflects the deep, mystical significance of Mak Yong's stories and dances, and its original aim to serve as a conduit to the spirit world. Ritual performances are enacted for spiritual healing, to pay homage to a teacher and for the graduation of a performer.

Royat hilang berita nak timbul
Timbul nak royat
Seorang Raja sebuah negeri
Seorang Raja sebuah menteri…

A vow to God

In the beginning, there was no such thing as Mak Yong.

But there was a family: a father, a mother, a child. This was happened 400 years ago. They lived in an ordinary kampung house. One day, the baby boy fell ill. The father, desperate to save his son’s life, approached medicine men to heal the boy. But nothing seemed to help. At the end of his wits, the father made a vow to God: “If my child is healed, I promise to teach him to play… mak yong.” The man, realising that he had uttered that word in a moment of spontaneity, turned to his wife in disbelief.

But soon the child’s health improved. The father, realising he now had to fulfil his vow, turned to his wife again. “How shall I teach our boy something which doesn’t exist?” The couple then decided they would give themselves roles to play and ask the child to play along. The father became the king, the mother the queen, and the child’s character was named Awang. The parents then began speaking to each other in character, and ‘Awang’ played along.

That, supposedly, was how Mak Yong came to be (as related to me by Pak Saari Abdullah, more on him later). Along the way, the form acquired songs and musical accompaniment, intricate and complex dance sequences, as well as a repertoire of fantastical stories (numbering between 12 and 20, depending on who you speak to). It also developed a way of relating itself to its past, thereby weaving into its consciousness a sense of history and continuity: its rituals.

More than anything else, it is this final component which has beleagured Mak Yong the most since the leading opposition, Pan Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), wrestled away the mantle of Kelantanese leadership from the grasp of Barisan Nasional in 1990.

With the change of administration came changes in regulations and codifications of local social mores: a war was waged against all so-called un- and pre-Islamic elements contained in every facet of Kelantanese life. In the arts, intermingling among ‘bukan muhrim’ (those not of familial ties) were barred in performances, and practices and rituals seen as ‘khurafat’ (deviations from PAS’s interpretation of Islam) were rebuked.

That was some 15 years ago.

Recently, It was presented with the opportunity to review this situation. Rey Buono, head of the School of Performance + Media Studies at Sunway University College, had long expressed his desire to take his students into the heartland of Kelantanese traditional performing arts. It was his hope that a week-long course involving an immersion process of research, observation, documentation, and study of Mak Yong in Kelantan may help give his students a deeper understanding of Malaysian theatre. This took place from Sun 26 Feb – Sun 5 Mar 2006.

More notably, on 25 November 2005, under an application prepared with the consultation of Dr Ghulam Sarwar Yusuf, the country’s (and in fact the world’s) foremost Mak Yong scholar and expert, Mak Yong received the honour of being one of 43 cultural Masterpieces proclaimed by UNESCO as being a part of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.