Holiday Ayo -  The province of Central Java Indonesia has a lot of interesting traditions and arts. In fact, this art attracts the attention of both domestic and foreign tourists. Some of the arts are known even abroad while some are not very popular. One that is less popular is the Cepetan Alas Dance.

Cepetan Alas Dance, or often simply called Cepetan Dance, is a traditional dance from Karanggayam District, Kebumen Regency, Central Java. What is unique about this dance is that every dancer wears a mask of a certain character. The dance is rarely performed these days, only during Indonesia Independence Days or other equally important events.

The name Cepetan Alas comes from the words cepet and alas. In Javanese language, the word cepet refers to a kind of ghost or spirit in Javanese folklore while the word alas means “wood”. In line with that, this dance also has extreme attractions of being possessed by spirits.

There are debates regarding the origin of Cepetan Dance. Ravie Ananda in his article about the dance argues that it is connected to an incident of opening a haunted forest to the public. It caused the anger of the spirits and ghosts that live there, such as cepet, brekasakan, banaspati, raksasa, and many others.

Head of Kebumen’s Local Art Council, Pekik Sat Siswonirmolo says that Cepetan Dance is a form of non-physical confrontation. The masks used for the dance are made of the wood of blackboard tree, with palm fibers as the hair. The process also includes a magical ritual in it.

According to Pekik, the masks are intentionally made to look scary by the local people to scare away business owners from entering their residential areas and opening their businesses there. The story about the haunted forest is just something that is added to the story in the dance.

Cepetan Dance is performed by 11 to 17 men with the masks of 3 different characters. The first character is the humans, which symbolize the good side. The second character is the animals, like monkeys, tigers, and elephants. The third character is the ghosts or spirits, like cepet, bekasakan, banaspati, and raksasa.

The music used for the dance is a simpler gamelan. When they come to the war scene of the performance, the dancers will be possessed and do some extreme actions such as somersaulting, eating flowers, biting a coconut and many others.