GONDHO KUSUMA FUNCTION AND MEANING OF GENDING IN PUPPET PERFORMANCE ART IN EAST JAVA, INDONESIA

Gending is a traditional music arrangement in Java-based Karawitan which is expressed by Javanese community in daily life to support their social relationship. Gending Gondho Kusuma is a music arrangement played to open leather puppet performance in East Java. It has certain function and meaning to the ritual of dalang (puppet master), especially when the ritual is closely related with dalang's other profession, which is dukun (shaman). This research utilizes qualitative perspective. Data are collected from interview, observation, and documentation. The collected data are analyzed with function theory, because this theory explains about relationship between action of human, material of this action and social system where this action is made. This analysis method can thus be called as hermeneutic. Research indicates few findings. Gending gondho kusuma is the opening music of puppet performance which is played for suguh, the procession of giving offerings. It involves the smoke of incense to “deliver” symbolically the ingredients of sajen, the offerings, for the meal of ancestral spirits, respectively the spirits of knights or kings who are presumed as attending the performance of leather or mask puppets.