Holiday Ayo - One of the dances from Lamongan Regency has attracted the public’s attention lately, after winning 3 awards from 3 different categories in Dance Work Festival 2022. This festival was held in East Java Province Cultural Park from July 14th to 15th. The Lamongan dance that had grabbed people’s attention during this event was Adara Purwa Dance.

Adara Purwa Dance is a dance that is performed to welcome guests. According to the choreographers,
Kristiani and Ninin Desinta, this dance also has a deeper philosophical meaning. Adara means honor while Purwa mean beginning. The dance is used as the opening of an event as a sign of respect toward the guests.

source: timesindonesia.co.id

Adara Purwa Dance has several symbolic meanings. Among them are the joy from the situation, the gratitude to the God, and repelling any misfortune.

Adara Purwa Dance grabbed many attentions at the Dance Festival. However, this dance had gone through several creative and innovative changes before. It was developed from Kiprah Balun Dance, which is another dance from Lamongan. Because of that, there are many characteristics that are similar.

“This dance (Adara Purwa) is actually inspired from Kiprah Balun Dance, which we adapted into a welcoming dance. We developed it again so it would fit the theme of the festival that was asked by the provincial tourism and culture department,” said the art teacher of Lamongan Public School Number 2, as cited from ngopibareng.id.

source: timesindonesia.co.id

Ninin also said that the creation of Adara Purwa Dance only took around 2 weeks. They were accompanied by the music directors Khoirudin and Purnomo, and the makeup artist and designer Endrya Prameswari. The whole preparation took 1 and half month in total.

The Head of Lamongan’s Tourism and Culture Department, Siti Rubikah claimed that she was very proud of the achievement. She hopes that this will inspire other artists to be more creative in making new works.