sabah culture & Arts
Sabah traditional dance:
This type of dance is one of the most well known traditional dances in Sabah as well as throughout Malaysia. It belongs to the Kadazandusun tribe. This ritual dance serves varied functions such as thanksgiving for bountiful paddy planting and harvesting, prayer against evil spirits, honouring the spirits as well as to cure illness. The movement and rhythm of this dance is elegantly soft and slow. The dancers, male and female, will face each other, move their feets in small movements and move their heels up and down to the beat of the music. While dancing the dancer will spread up their hands and move it up and down just like a bird spreading their wings to fly. The Sumazau is usually performed during festive occasions and gatherings.
This is an original traditional dance of the Bajau. The Limbai dance is performed during a wedding ceremony. It is an act of welcoming the bridegroom and his entourage and to invite them to the bride’s house. The melody and rhythmic movements of the dancer will accompany the bridegroom to the bride's house and would preceed the "ijab-qabul" or wedding ceremony. The graceful movement of the dancers’ wrists will sway their shawls to express their warm welcome to the party concerned.
This dance belongs to the Murut’s tribe of Kuhijaw (Kwijau). The "Magunatip" word is derived from the "apit" word, which means "trapped". In this dance one must master and show their agility and dexterity in jumping and putting their feet between the clapping bamboos without being trapped. This dance does not usually require any instrumental music because the rhythmic clapping and stamping of the bamboos produce a loud, harmonised, beat and interesting sound or rhythm. This dance is usually performed to highlight any festive occasion.
This traditional dance was brought over from the Mindanao archipelago by the Suluks and does not originate from Bajau tribe in the Semporna district. The intermingling relationship between the Bajau and Suluk in those early days resulted in the dance becoming a living heritage of the Bajau community residing in Semporna. The phrase "daling daling" actually originated from the English word "darling". The main characteristic of the dance is the interchange of quatrains between the male and female dancers and is usually performed as an entertainment in various occasions.
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