Mek Mulung

Mek Mulung (Jawi: مق مولوڠ) is a traditional Malay theatre that is unique to the northwest state of Kedah in Malaysia. It became popular since the late 18th century and incorporates most elements of Mak Yong, Menora and Hadrah. The theatre features a repertoire of stories from local legends, which according to a source, amounted about 20 original stories, with few of them survived today. Similar to Mak Yong, the stories are presented through dialogue, song and dance. The musicians and actors of the theatre are exclusively male, playing both male and female roles. The basic dance movements are limited, abbreviated, crude and mainly focus on the arms, especially the to-and-fro, and up and down swinging. The orchestra of Mek Mulung is predominantly percussive and consists of rebana, gong and kecerek (concussion sticks). A small oboe, the only melodic instruments in the orchestra, complements other instruments. The musicians also do the singing, typically in syllabic style, with little vocal ornamentation. The performance normally begins with a ritual known as bertabuh where all musical instruments will be played simultaneously. Then, an opening song called bertabik will be sung in group and accompanied by dancing movements. There are up to 7 types of dance in Mek Mulung: 1. Tarian Sembah 2. Tarian Gambang 3. Tarian Puteri Mabuk 4. Tarian Anak Menora 5. Tarian Sirama 6. Tarian Puteri Masuk Bilik Air 7.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mek Mulung”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Mek Mulung is traditional Malaysian performance involving acting, dialogue, singing and dancing, 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.¹¶

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