Dancing Through the Thorns : The Struggle of A Lengger Lanang Dancer

Abstract

Culture is our identity. When people destroy and forget their culture which has been with them for a long time, it will make their next generation forget who they are. Every region in Indonesia has their own culture that is known as local culture. A local culture in the form of dance performances known as lengger lanang is almost forgotten in Banyumas. The lengger lanang dance has existed in Banyumas since 1874 (Nafas Tradisi dan Gender Ketiga, 2020) and this is very regrettable if one day it disappears from the culture of Banyumas and Indonesia. The short story is going to represent the conflict and the people's stereotypes in lengger lanang that is experienced by Lintang since childhood as he went through some physical and mental bullies and abuse from his mother and the villagers in Somakaton village. This short story applies the Psychoanalytic theory and one of the theories is stated by Lois Tyson in Critical Theory Today ( 2006 : 22). She mentioned “Crisis brings into the spotlight wounds, fears, guilty desires, or unresolved conflicts that I have failed to deal with and that demand action. I am flooded by the past because I can now see what was really going on. This is how I can know myself through crisis. Trauma is also used, of course, to refer to a painful expe‑rience that scars us psychologically. And I might also see, for example, the ways in which my parents unconsciously encouraged my guilt in order to relieve their own.``. This research will conduct qualitative descriptive research and for the process of data collection, the writer uses library research. The purpose of portraying lengger lanang is to advise readers to not easily give bad judgments to anybody who wants to preserve local culture by their attitude. Lengger lanang dancers in their female costume are still valuable to be preserved because they keep morale and are important to the next generation. Modern culture is always interesting to follow, but our local culture should not be misplaced and forgotten just because of bad stereotypes.