Enggang Dance, Traditional Dance of Dayak Kenyah - East Kalimantan

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East Kalimantan has the traditional dance came from Dayak tribe. This named Enggang Bird dance a dance of Dayak Kenyah of East Kalimantan province. This dance must be performed in every traditional ceremony of Dayak Kenyah. This dance describes daily life of Enggang bird. According to a belief of Dayak Kenyah, their ancestors came from the sky and went down to earth like enggang bird. Because of that, Dayak kenyah people really honor enggang bird, so that enggang dance can be meant as a tribute to Dayak Kenyah ancestors. Besides that, there are some people who have opinions that Enggang bird dance is a symbol of Dayak community displacement from one place to another in groups, because Dayak in the past lived a nomadic life.

Enggang dance is performed by young women of Dayak Kenyah tribe. When dancing, they wear accessories with enggang bird motif on their heads and also big earrings. Besides that, they also hold Enggang bird’s feathers.

They dance accompanied by traditional musical instrument, namely sampe, gendang and gong. Sampe is Dayak typical stringed instrument. Besides being a compulsory dance on Dayak traditional ceremonies, Enggang dance is often performed to welcome guests.

Enggang dance movement use basic movement of enggang bird. The concept of the dance movement is categorized into 3 main movements, namely Nganjat, Ngasai and Purak Barik. Nganjat is a typical movement of Dayak dance like ivory enggang bird which opens and closes its wings. This movement symbolizes beautiful movement of Dayak dancer. Ngasai is a movement like an enggang bird which is flying. And Purak Barik is a basic movement which shows migration movement. In its development, there is a new creation of enggang dance, but it cannot be separated from the meaning and philosophy in the Enggang dance.