1983: Seminar Boria 11-13 November, USM

Four papers were presented on this occasion. Rahmah Bujang whose paper was read, opened the presentation with a rehearsed overview on the foreign origins of Boria and its eventual locationisation, appraising its value as a literary platform as well as its versatilty. Implicit in her paper was its reinforcement of the acculturation logic in Malay identitarian discourse known as ‘masuk Melayu’. What the phrase implies is the assimilative potential that makes Malay culture so versatile and adaptive to the new challenges of each period.

This framework provides clarity to the following paper by Abdullah Darus on ‘The history and development of Boria across the ages’. Here, he divided the Boria into six periods, dating its emergence to early 20th century despite common knowledge that the term used to describe a roving minstrel had been in circulation since the last decade of the 19th century.

The first period (1910s-1930s) corresponded with British colonial Malaya; the second period (1940s) covered the period where Malaya was under Japanese occupation; The third period (1940s-1950s) was during the federation of Malaya and marked the return of Malaya to British colonial rule; the fourth period (1957- 1960s) was named Boria Merdeka, framed by Malaya’s independence from British rule; The fifth period (1970s) was described as a period of ‘progress and nation-building’; and finally the sixth period (1980s), noted as the contemporary period.

Recognising Boria as an unfinished project, Darus concluded by offering a structural chart describing a regulating bodies of culture and its function to uplift Boria as an artform alongside other suggestions about a system for state-funded competitions as well as plans to offer Boria courses to the public school students.

The next paper confirms the above when Azizi Hj Abdullah inveighs against the flippancy of Boria and asked if this was something that the Malay community could be proud of. It was a statement that had an uncannily historical precedent in the form of Muhammad Yusof bin Sultan Mydin’s 1922 anti-Boria syair and tract. In affirming the dignity of a racial identity, both found a need to point to deviancy from a newly formulated norm. Ironically, civilisational dignity . of a nation or race could only be validated by the Europeans, for fear of the possibility they might think less of the Malays.

The easy target meant that a wave of puritanism was coming at those who found refuge in the Boria precisely because they were already marginalised by society. In a way, Boria’s futurism in the 1980s was not dissimilar to the impact that Islamic reform movement on Boria in the 1920s.

A different potential could be found in the last paper presented by Mohd Anis Md. Nor. On first impression, the paper is a technical study on the role dance played in the development of Boria. It constructs innovations in Boria as sustained by a playful shift between ‘overture’ and ‘cadence’. ‘Overture’ here suggests an established rhythmic repertory of ‘movement-phrase’ while, ‘cadence’ signals the improvised build up towards a display of extravagance aimed at visual impact.

 In offering a formalist reading of the Boria as structured by a series of movement, instead of arriving at a commonplace understanding of formalism as a depoliticised reading of art – Anis suggests that to understand the political stakes involved in Boria, there is a different ground on which one is able to take control of the narrative on which Boria’s cultural polemics can be discussed.

In closing, perhaps it is opportune to return to a quatrain from Syair Tabut, for it speaks to the staying power of the story about the Muharram and the Boria. One story might be coming to an end, but another is just about to begin. 

Luput riwayat terbit cerita 
Kisahnya tabut fakir berkata 
Ayuh ya tuan dengar berita 
Perarakan siang empunya warta

Photos taken from the blog of Pak Omar Hashim, a veteran boria performer. http://warisanboria.blogspot.com/2011/10/seminar-boria-1983-di-usm.html?m=0