Performing Arts of Buto Birowo, Cosmology and Religious Expression of Rural Communities

Abstract

This article will attempt to discuss the Performing Arts of Buto Birowo. As a performing art, it is part of social practice and represents the cosmology of the Lencoh community which accommodates the relationship between modern, traditional, Islamic values ​​and Javanese spirituality. In the Buto Birowo performance, the relationship between actors and audience does not only occur on the stage. but it appears in their daily life. The unity between the performing arts and the people is seen as a beacon or a sign of a dimensional reality, as a drama in the daily lives of the Lencoh people. Stage drama arises from plays or stories that are sung in performances, while everyday drama arises from problems that occur in people's daily lives such as the problem of not being able to pay dues, being unable to participate in mutual cooperation due to illness, and so on. Buto Birowo also implies the existence of a dialectic process of religion and culture that occurs naturally and intensely in society, especially in Javanese rural communities. This phenomenon has given birth to a very varied religious attitude of the Muslim community. Starting from religion as something that is believed (value system), understood (cognition system), to be practiced (affection system). The universe of discussion in this dissertation will attempt to reveal that the performance art of Buto Birowo as a social practice is a form of social harmony and religious instincts of the Lencoh people. As a social practice, Buto Birowo accommodates community cooperation, binds people in the same communality and identity, and creates close social harmony.