Cultural Performing Arts

 Every country definitely has its own art of music. Has different and unique characteristics as a sign of the art of the music. Malaysia is one of the countries that has a diversity of traditional music arts. One of them is the music art of Dikir Barat which is the traditional music art for the state of Kelantan. Each state in Malaysia, has a different but interesting cultural performance art to see and learn.

I don't want to talk about the history of Dikir Barat Traditional Music. I just want to share a little experience on how I learned the art of traditional Dikir Barat music when I was still a student at the University of MalayaWhen I was in the 2nd year,  4th semester. I am required to participate in co-curriculum activities which are also recorded in my Degree transcript later. Various activities are offered and one of that is Kelantan State Cultural Performing Arts (Dikir Barat). This activity represents 2 credit hours for the semester. Apparently the activity became the main choice among students and I was lucky to be able to register for the activity.

On the first day of the activity, the activity was more about questioning and deciding who would play the musical instrument when performing the Dikir Barat later. This activity will run for a month, then the University sets a date for the Presentation Activity Day involving all the activities offered. The cultural art of performing Dikir Barat is usually played by Kelantanese. However, this time, this cultural art is played by students who are not from Kelantan but have talent in performing  Dikir Barat cultural art.

Singing songs have been prepared, the students only need to focus on the practice of playing musical instruments and Dikir Barat performance discipline of the members during the performance later. Dikir Barat cultural art performances seem simple but there are rules or taboos before, during and after the performance is held. I joined as a crew because it requires the involvement of many members, Dikir Barat has 2 main singers who deliver songs in Kelantan accent.

After an intensive training, it was finally time for a presentation at the University Co-Curriculum Open Day. The clothes we wore were quite simple, white t-shirts. Alhamdulillah, the performance went well, we got a positive response as people for the first time trying the art of Kelantan culture. Maybe we weren’t on par with the Dikir Barat artists representing residential colleges but our coaches were satisfied with the performances shown that day.

We all PASSED for the co-curricular activities we participated in. The most important thing to me is that the performing arts culture of Kelantan can be learned by all students, not necessarily those from Kelantan only.

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