Cirebon mask dance

The tradition & historical record

Cirebonese mask dance (Indonesian: Tari Topeng Cirebon; Cirebonese: beksan topéng Cerbon) is a local indigenous art form of Cirebon in Java, including Indramayu and Jatibarang, West Java and Brebes, Central Java. It is called mask dance because the dancers use masks when dancing. There is a lot of variety in Javanese mask dance, both in terms of the dance style and the stories to be conveyed. This mask dance can be performed by solo dancers, or performed by several people. Each mask represents different meanings that influence the dance and their movements, and in the village called Beber, Ligung, Majalengka, in west java they have a dance with the characters using masks of different colors and expressions called Panji, Samba, Rumyang, Tumenggung and Kelana dating back to the 17th century. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Cirebonese mask dance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Cirebon mask dance is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²