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THE CREATION OF SURAKARTA AND YOGYAKARTA STYLES

The appearance of separate Surakarta and Yogyakarta styles of Javanese dancing was the result of the splicting of the Mataram, kingdom into two in 1755, when Mataram. was divided into the Surakarta and the Yogyakarta kingdoms.

kinds of Javanese dance-dramas wayang -wong Langen driya and langen mandra wanara.
wayang wong, is a dance-drama in the real sense of the word, for there is a harmonious fusion of drama in dialogue with dancing and its accompaniment of gamelan, Langen driya is a ,Javanese dance-opera using tembang or javanese singing, as dialogue,
telling the story of Damarwulan. Whereas langen mandra wanara is it Javanese dance opera telling the story of the Ramayana.
The wayang wong in Yogyakarta was created by king of the Yogyakarta kingdom himself, Sultan Hamengku Buwana I, in the second half of the 18th century. The first performance was held in the court of Yogyakarta and the play was Gandawardaya, a fragment of the epic Mahabharata.

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According to traditional belief in Surakarta, wayang wong was created by Prince Adipati Arya Mangkunegara I, the first prince of the smaller kingdom of Mangkunegaran, in the second half of the l8th century. The first performance held in the Mangkunegaran court was Wijanarka, also a fragment from the epic Mahabharata.

In this wayang wong performance, every dancer who plays a significant role uses dialogue and there is aslo the storyteller, who in modern Javanese is called dalang. the dalang, who sits in front of the gamelan orchestra has a very important function in this wayang wong performance, playing the lead and explaining the story.

The langen driya, which developed both in Surakarta and Yogyakarta was a further development of the wayang wong, except that in the langen driya the dialongues are songs, and the story presented is about Damarwulan, a semi-historical narrative from the Majapahit period.

The langen mandra wanara, a Ramayana dance-opera, was created by Prince Danureja VII, vizier of Yogyakarta kingdom at the end of the 19th century.
The creation of the wayang wong, langen driya and langen mandra wanara marked the beginning of an extensive development of Javanese dancing, Surakarta style and Yogyakarta style.