I had read, view, and feel shame of some writer who wrote about dikir barat without really study or find a clue of what dikir barat is. I'm not trying to discuss or explain of where dikir barat was born or originated because it was full of maze and cloud where it is until today debatable, but for sure what i had observe dikir barat in the form of what we here in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak including Singapura practices is based in kelantan, a state in Malaysia. It's my state, where my family and ancestors live.
Explanation of what is dikir barat or the the meaning of dikir barat is merely a folks play, entertainment of the village people after the paddy season. It comprise of singing, rhyme, choir, dance, and portray a symbolic action of unity between the members. Here i put dikir barat in my own words from what i had experienced by years of my involvement in dikir barat. My explanation is what had i learned from the people who is more experience from me, no books, no in-depth study or special note to be pull out from library, its just long life learning process. Written sources that i had found, books,wiki, or personal blogs sometime does not fulfill the requirement to be taken as the source, I'm not saying mine is solid but what ever i wrote here is well learned and confirmed. Here briefly what is Dikir barat for your understanding:-
Dikir barat is form of play which form of three part, the lead singer known as "Tok Jogho", a second singer known as "Tukang Karut", a group singer called "Awok-awok", and the Musician. This group contains of 15 to 25 personnel where the most is the "awok-awok". the orientation of performance can be a solo group performance or between group performance. If its happen to have more than one group it will be more to competition orientations. However it will depends on the occasion, some performance needs two group for a merrier situation, it's not always about competition when two dikir barat group come together but sometimes its a learning process of new dikir barat group to feel and learn from the more experience group. There is no books and manual, the way you can learn is by visually and verbally attach to the more experienced people. For more experience group they make a duel just to test how far they had improve their skills.
Tok Jogho
A lead singer where he is the first person that open the performance. Tok Jogho hold a big responsibility as the one who put the leads of what will happen next. Tok Jogho is the one who push the spirit of the whole team. Tok Jogho only will sing the opening song called lagu jogho (jogho songs) it can be of any topics and title, mostly about love, topic of campaign and many more. How it was done: the lyrics will be compose in a form of poetry with a beautiful language to be such a story in a songs. example of lyrics:
seribu indah janji setia
sebaris madah tersusun kata,
semakin musnah kecamuk jiwa,
seakan punah menjadi duka,
seraut wajah memikat sukma,
terasa mudah cinta dibina,
selama berpisah tak bersama,
sehari itulah paling berharga,
sekuntum bunga indah warnanya,
semerbak bau menusuk jiwa,
seindah cinta penuh setia,
semusim hilangnya sang kecewa,
The opening lyrics (in bold) will be sang repeatedly by the awok-awok simultaneously with the Tok Jogho after every time Tok Jogho finish the next lyrics. the awok part will be explain in the next parts
Tukang Karut
Task of Tukang Karut is more bold and heavy because he has to hold a very big responsibility in shifting the moods not only the awok-awok but the audience. For competition, format of the songs that need to be perform by Tukang Karut is quite a long list. He is the one will explain and conclude all the points that have been mark by the Tok Jogho.
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