Art & Culture

Sintren

It is said that Sintren art performance has its own uniqueness and beauty. It can be seen from the use of musical instruments which are made of ceramics or gembyung and bamboo which when stricken with particular way can create unique sound. According to Mr. Warnali (Culture Observer of Sub districts Indramayu City), the term Sintren is derived from two words, “Sinyo” and “trennen”.

Sinyo means young man and trennen means training, so it means young people of Indramayu who are training arts. The way of playing sintren is similar to that of magic show, in which a female dancer wears daily clothing at the start after being inserted into a cage as big as a chicken coop and then another clothing (dance costume) is also inserted into the cage, then in several moments the dancer’s clothing will be converted into dancing costume. During the changing process “dupa” (incense) continuously smoked as the sign of magical influence in the show. After that, magical dances are performed until the end of the show.

This art is very rare and the performance can not be found very often, that is why this art is made traditional art which still has unique characteristics and developed in the region of Indramayu and Regency of Cirebon.