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Accepted Paper:

Owning a national dance that only exists in migration  
Monika Winarnita (Deakin University)

Paper short abstract:

An Indonesian migrant dance group in Perth, Western Australia, has appropriated different music and dance styles in order to perform their ownership of a trans-national identity.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologists have interrogated the nature or even the existence of an Indonesian national culture (Accaioli, Widodo and Yampolsky). In this paper, I discuss the creation of a national dance (called “Unity in Diversity” or “Bhineka Tunggal Ika”) by the Silk Veil Indonesian Community dancers of Perth, Western Australia. In this dance, the migrant group adapts dance moves from various Indonesian ethnic groups, an international belly dancing style as well as an Indonesian national aerobic campaign. All this is choreographed to a popular ‘traditional’ song imported from Malaysia. What the dancers try to achieve by appropriating these different elements is ownership of an Indonesian trans-national identity. This ownership is performed for Indonesian migrant community and the Australian multicultural audience. As Indonesian migrants they project their aspirations to be ‘cosmopolitan patriots’ (Appiah). In other words, they believe they are educating the Australian audience about Indonesian culture as part of the diplomacy of culture between the two nations. The Indonesian migrant community, however, is constantly engaged in debates as to whether this and other ‘Indonesian’ dances represent their identity as Indonesians in Australia. This paper thus illustrates that by owning and appropriating a recreated national performance, the dance provides an opportunity to reflect on and reconsider their migrant identity in ‘multicultural’ Australia.

Panel P29
The aesthetics of diaspora
  Session 1