A Story of Saman Dance

How are you?

I am glad to see you.

In this nice time, i would like to give you information about Saman Dance which comes from Aceh Darussalam Province.

This dance comes from Gayo Plateau. In the past, the Saman Dance was used to be performed  to celebrate the precious event of Aceh Societies especially their customs. In addition, this dance also was performed to celebrate our Prophet Muhammad SAW Birthday (Maulid Nabi). As the fact, the  word "Saman" was well known by the mufti from Aceh, Syeh Saman. Usually, the Saman Dance is performed by using some equipments, music, drum, the sound from the dancer, clapping. Those are combined by clapping on the chest and on the thigh base as a synchronization and dash the body to every direction.

 This dance is guided by the leader which is known as Syech, because the uniformity formation and the time punctuality is a must in performing this dance. So that, the dancers are demanded to have a high concentration and serious training in order to have perfectly performance. 

This dance is conducted in a group, while singing and sitting on kneel position and lining without using the escort music.

Because of the dynamically movement, this dance is performed by men, but based on the development this dance also performed by women or mixed between men and women. This dance is performed by more or less than 10 persons, 8 persons are the dancers and 2 persons as the guider to give the signal and sing.

Saman Dance as an excellent show in each performance. This is also a unique dance because only performing the hand clapping movement other movement, especially body movement, head, body position. The other uniqueness of the Saman Dance seems from the dancer position while sitting and the body shaking which is stabbed to the left and the right, when the rhyme is sung.

This dance sometimes performed by tens or thousands of men, but the number must be odd. However, in the next development, this dance will be performed by women or mixed between men and women.