Movement Grammar and Mnemonic Notation in the 1957 Tanjung Katung Manuscript: An Ethnochoreological Reading: English

Muhdi Kurnia

doi:10.70471/gbt64917

Authors

Muhdi Kurnia Yayasan Kampong Serdang Beradat Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70471/gbt64917

Keywords:

ethnochoreology, dance notation, movement analysis, embodied knowledge, Malay dance, Tanjung Katung, Guru Sauti, Serdang Malay

Abstract

This article examines how the 1957 Tanjung Katung/Lagu Dua manuscript attributed to Guru Sauti converts embodied Malay dance knowledge into a written choreographic record. Adopting an ethnochoreological perspective, the study asks which movement units recur in the document, how direction, pathway, partner relation, and timing organize its three principal movement complexes (ragam), and what kind of notation the manuscript represents. A qualitative document-based structural analysis was undertaken on photographic reproductions of the manuscript: instructions were segmented and coded along six dimensions—action, direction, count, pathway geometry, partner relation, and return condition—without inferring any count, body part, or dynamic quality where the source is silent, and were then compared across the ragam and checked against the accompanying floor-path sketches. The results show that the manuscript is neither a full symbolic score nor an anecdotal description. It combines technical vocabulary, eight- and four-count units, directional instructions, geometric pathways, and performance etiquette. Recurrent principles include right-foot initiation, paired positioning, 45-degree diagonals, half- and three-quarter-circle pathways, full rotations, temporary partner asymmetry, and return to the point of origin, which together form a relational spatial grammar of departure, encounter, circulation, and return. The manuscript is therefore best classified as a mnemonic–analytic record, that is, a record precise about the architecture of the dance but dependent on a competent, culturally trained reader for its texture and style. A triangulated, three-tier reconstruction protocol is proposed to separate recorded evidence from practitioner-attested and editorially supplied elements, providing a basis for reconstruction and classroom transmission.

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