Applauding Javanese Artists

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of over 145 million, Java is home to c 60 % of the Indonesian population and is the most populous island on Earth.

In the central Javanese court cities of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, contemporary kings trace their lineages back to the prae-colonial Islamic kingdoms that ruled the region, making those places especially strong repositories of classical Javanese culture.

The Javanese dance is created and influenced by the distinctive Javanese culture, often with controlled, deliberate and refined movements. It's usually associated with the courtly and sophisticated culture of the royal palaces aka kratons. The Javanese dance has a somewhat meditative quality and tends to be more self-reflective, introspective and more oriented toward self-understanding. It is usually associated with wayang wong aka wayang orang and the palaces of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, due to the nature of the dance being a pusaka or sacred heirloom from the ancestors of the palace rulers.

 

The wayang wong dance dramas in the central Javanese kratons of Yogyakarta and Surakarta represent the epitome of the distinctive Javanese culture. It is total theatre involving dance, drama, music, visual arts, language, and literature.

The pesindhèn (informally: sindhen) are female solo singers who sing with a gamelan orchestra. They may perform in unaccompanied music, dance, or wayang wong performances.

As the center of Javanese courtly culture, Surakarta is also the centre of all royal Javanese dances. Wayang wong is routinely performed in a wayang wong theatre in Sriwedari park.

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2013-11a Applauding Javanese Artists

Flickr Album 2013-12a Prettifying Taiwanese Faces

Hunting Sexy Head Huntresses

The Dayak people are the native people of Borneo's rainforest. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic subgroups, located principally in the interior of Borneo aka Kalimantan, each with its own dialect, customs, laws, territory and culture, although common distinguishing traits are readily identifiable. The Dayak were animist in belief; however many converted to Islam and since the 19th century, there has been mass conversion to Christianity. In the past, the Dayak were feared for their ancient tradition of ngayau aka headhunting practices.

Headhunting is the practice of taking and preserving a person's head after killing the person. It was practised in historic times in many parts of Borneo/Kalimantan. As a practice, headhunting has been the subject of intense discussion within the anthropological community as to its possible social roles, functions, and motivations. Themes that arise in anthropological writings about headhunting include mortification of the rival, ritual violence, cosmological balance, the display of manhood, cannibalism, prestige, and as a means of securing the services of the victim as a slave in the afterlife. Some experts theorize that the practice stemmed from the belief that the head contained "soul matter" or life force, which could be harnessed through its capture...

Street portrait photographs from Borneo aka Kalimantan in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2013-10c Roaming Deforested Kalimantan

Flickr Album 2013-10b Hunting Sexy Head Huntresses

Flickr Album 2009-11a Facing Exotic Northern Borneo

Inspecting Combat-ready Korean Warriors

Hwaseong ("Brilliant Castle") is the fortress surrounding the centre of the city of Suwon, located c. 30 km south of Seoul, South Korea. This fortress was built from 1794 to 1796 CE by King Jeongjo of the Joseon Dynasty to house and honour the remains of his father Prince Sado, who had been executed by being locked alive inside a rice chest by his own father King Yeongjo after failing to obey the command to commit suicide…

The fortress includes King Jeongjo's palace Haenggung which is the focus of several martial arts performances and festivals (primarily Korean polearms and swordsmanship). The famous Twenty-four Martial Arts (muyedobotongji) are regularly demonstrated following the routine used in King Jeongjo's time as king. The Twenty-four Martial Arts were compiled in 1790 CE by Yi Deokmu and Pak Je-ga, who had received orders as such from King Jeongjo, and Baek Dong-soo, a master of martial arts at that time. These distinctive martial arts were then regularly practised by the warriors of Hwaseong.

Street portraits of Korean people in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2013-06a Plunging into Brilliant South Korea

Savouring Bangkok's Floating Markets

A floating market is a market where food and goods are sold from boats. Originating in times and places where water transport played an important role in daily life, most floating markets operating today mainly serve as tourist attractions, and are chiefly found in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Khlong Lat Mayom, Taling Chan, Bang Nam Pheung, Bang Khu Wiang and Amphawa floating market are the most notable ones in Bangkok.

 

Where the camera is placed in relation to the subject can affect the way the viewer perceives the subject; sometimes you can dramatically alter your photo composition by just changing your perspective and camera angle. For practical and also psychological reasons, a high-angle shot is often the method of choice at floating markets...

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11a Respecting Thai Buddhist Monks

Flickr Album 2015-10a Plucking Bangkok's Flowers

Flickr Album 2013-04a Savouring Thai Floating Markets

Winking at Bangkok's Temple Dancers

Temples and shrines in Thailand often feature performances by Thai dance troupes, who are hired by worshippers in return for seeing their prayers at the shrine answered. Bangkok's famous Erawan Shrine is a Hindu shrine that houses a statue of Phra Phrom, the Thai representation of the Hindu god of creation Lord Brahma. More than 90 % of Thailand's population are Buddhist, but they mix aspects of Hindu and animist beliefs into their spiritual perception and appear comfortable with Hinduism's pantheon of gods blending with Buddha's teaching that god does not exist…

Dancing bare-foot in a temple seems like an idyllic job, but for Bangkok's shimmering temple dancers at the Erawan Shrine it's a demanding career accompanied by incense-choked lungs, consequent dieting and rare toilet breaks before the music stops on their 40th birthday.

“The greater the ambiguity,
the greater the pleasure.”

(Milan Kundera)

Bangkok's temples are a unique part of the capital's heart and soul; the lesser known Wat Sri Bunruang is one of the c. 500 wats in Bangkok. Strictly speaking a wat is a Buddhist sacred precinct which consists of the vihara (the quarters for monks aka bhikkhus), the actual temple, an edifice housing a large image of Buddha, and a structure for teaching, learning and dancing.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer...”

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

Portrait photographs of Asian genderqueers in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2014-05a Hitting On Asia's Genderqueers

Portrait photographs of dancers in Matt Hahnewald's
Flickr Album 2015-11h Dancing with the Thai Chinese

Flickr Album 2015-11b Cheering Northern Thai Dancers

Flickr Album 2013-03a Winking at Thai Temple Dancers

Flickr Album 2012-04a Watching Agile Batak Dancers

Flickr Album 2011-04b Recording Indian Temple Dance