Embodying Iban Masculinity across Ritual and Public Performance Contexts: An Ethnochoreographic Study of Ajat Laki Iban

Ramles Radin Suradi; Muhammad Fazli Taib Saearani

doi:10.71094/gjsl.v3i1.506

Authors

Ramles Radin Suradi Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Perak Author
Muhammad Fazli Taib Saearani Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Perak Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71094/gjsl.v3i1.506

Keywords:

Ajat Laki Iban, Embodiment, Ethnochoreography, Iban Masculinity, Indigenous Performance, Oral Tradition

Abstract

Despite increasing scholarship on Iban performing arts, limited attention has been given to how Ajat Laki Iban negotiates masculinity across ritual and public performance contexts and to how locally authoritative oral accounts enter that negotiation. This article examines the relationship among movement, Indigenous cosmology, oral explanation, communal practice, and performance context through a qualitative ethnographic and ethnochoreographic study in Nanga Tutong, Lubok Antu, and selected public performances at the Sarawak Cultural Village. The study draws on participant observation, semi-structured interviews with six Iban cultural practitioners, field notes, photographs, and audiovisual documentation. Findings are presented as situated to the documented community and performance corpus rather than as representative of all Iban practice. In Nanga Tutong, masculine values such as courage, discipline, responsibility, and composure were articulated through bodily practice and locally authorised narratives. Public performances showed continuity with adaptation: movement projection, spatial orientation, and audience relation changed, while recognisable movement vocabulary and practitioner-articulated values persisted. Origin and ngayau-related accounts are treated as emic oral traditions rather than historical verification. The study contributes to dance anthropology and Indigenous performance studies by integrating ethnochoreographic analysis with oral-tradition source criticism to explain how masculinity is embodied, transmitted, and recontextualised across performance settings.

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