AESTHETIC EXPRESSION OF JAVANESE DRAG PERFORMANCE IN CABARET SHOW AS AN INDONESIAN MODERN PERFORMANCE AT HAMZAH BATIK YOGYAKARTA

Abstract

The rapid growth of modern arts has marginalized the presence of traditional Javanese art in performance art. The aesthetic expression of traditional performance, which keeps up the concept of modern performance, deserves further study. This study is a study about a form of traditional art packaged in a modern Indonesian performance art of Cabaret, where the cabaret art prioritizes drag performance involving male actors. The Informants as the source of the data include the artists of drag performance who derive from traditional Javanese or modern arts.

Other sources of data which is essential are the cabaret show and relevant documents. The collected information includes the cabaret shows' visual information, verbal information from the informants, and textual information from the documents. Cultural analysis as a perspective and single of cussed case study as the model was supported by developing Adorno's (1984) aesthetic concept, as well as McNeal's (1999) concept of drag performance. The study's validity was tested with peer debriefing while the data was analyzed by developing the interactive analysis model. The study found: first that traditional dance is an art that follows the primary concept of commercial performance art. There is a shift of aesthetic values in the elements of costume, theme, and performance stage. Second, art that adjusts to the primary concept has resulted in false standardized and individualized performance. Third, as traditional performance, it has been entrapped in the modern art industry that resulted in the art characters' fading. The art that was initially a subject turned into a temporary and consumptive nature.