Bele bele bejale: exploring the role of the royal courts of Kelantan, Riau-Lingga, and Serdang in the circulation and transformation of mak yong in the Nusantara

Abstract

This chapter examines how royal sponsorship and historical ties to royal courts in maritime Southeast Asia influenced mak yong, and how modern statecraft and narratives of royal patronage continue to shape mak yong performance in Malaysia and Indonesia today. Mak yong is a Malay folk drama that includes singing, dancing, and epic tales. An exploration of written and oral history of mak yong performance in Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, and Perlis in Malaysia and the Riau Archipelago and the sultanate of Serdang in Indonesia reveals a history of royal patronage and folk performance, UNESCO intangible cultural heritage recognition, state-level religious bans, and royal and national sponsored revitalisations. I draw upon the methods of ethnography, oral history, and extant historical sources to explore the influence of the royal courts of Kelantan, Riau-Lingga ,and Serdang, East Sumatra, on the dissemination and exchange of mak yong performers and performance practice. Itinerant mak yong folk performers travelled over land and sea routes throughout maritime Southeast Asia. Their journeys were conditioned by political unrest in the Patani sultanate, the rise and fall of the Riau-Lingga sultanate, cultural diplomacy between the sultanates of Kedah and Serdang, the social revolution of East Sumatra in post-independence Indonesia, and the movement to create a national theatrical form in Malaysia. Mak yong as a performance genre has also been in a continual state of transformation – transitioning from village performances to entertainment for Malay royal courts, back to itinerant folk performances – adapted and reinterpreted to suit new patrons and new performance opportunities