Raden Mas Jodjana (1893-1972)

Autoportrait gravé
Raden Mas Jodjana's dances

   Born in Yogyakarta, Central Java, he was kin to the royal court of the sultan, as well as the court of the regent of Madiun. N° 54 of Archipel features a very interesting article about him by Marcel Bonneff and Pierre Labrousse. We advise you to read it since we have only added here a few documents that have been kindly lent to us by his daughter, Dr Chavoix-Jodjana.
   Having learned from the earliest age, like every Javanese nobleman, the arts of dance and music, Raden Mas Jodjana, went in 1914 to the Netherland to attend the High School of Trade in Rotterdam. He quickly and fully involved himself in dancing while perfecting in music, painting, sculpting and engraving. He became one of the rare Javanese professional dancers in Europe to be able to live from his art and to transmit it.

   He then embodied what could be called the second wave of introduction of Indonesian Art in France and subscribed to the concerns of the Western modernity of that time, as opposed to the Javanese behavioural customs of his youth. Driven by an imperative need of self assertion, of original expression and personal renewal through improvisation, Raden Mas Jodjana was in contact with many great artists and intellectuals (Pablo Casals, Zadkine, Isaac Israels, Abel Gance, Jacques Copeau, Peter Brook, Krishnamurti, Philippe Stern, Josef Kosma) and lived in tune with the European cultural movements of his day. He joined in the large interest for body expression which is a highmark of the second half of the twentieth century. He and his wife Raden Ayou Jodjana (of Dutch origin) also got involved in pedagogy and the awakening of youngsters to dance and music by favouring their autonomous individual creativity.
   The couple, through the activities of the Centre Jodjana they enlivened from 1934 to the war, pioneered gamelan teaching in France and a specific pedagogy in dance and dramatic art. The leaflet shown opposite, (the cover of which was created by their son Raden Bagus Bhimo, tragically deceased in a concentration camp during WWII)  leads to the page devoted to this original initiative.

Couverture VergoignanMasque en bronze
details on Centre Jodjana


   R.M.Jodjana carried on with his activities after the war, particularly as a teacher in the Academy of  Dramatic Art in Amsterdam. You can read his detailed biography in the above mentioned issue of Archipel.

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