Yospan – A Dancing in Harmony of Young Papuan

The sky is bright this afternoon in the beautiful sunny day in Manokwari. More than 10 groups of young people and teenager in pair man and women performing a beautiful moves of dancing following the nice local Papua music. Wearing fence and colorful dress they dances across the main of  Sanggeng in Manokwari. Yes, I then realized that they performing “Yospan”.

Yospan is one of the most famous dancing in Papua and are very often been performing almost in all the island. The dance was introduced by Biakness and Yapenness people that describing young people that still looking their girls and boys friend. This is why for Papuan, Yospan is also identic with young and has another call with “Tarian Muda-Mudi” or “the dancing of young people”. It combines the skills of body shaking, hands dancing and variance of move following the variance music tempo. A specific song in Yospan are describing the live scene of all the process on how a young man approaching his targeted young women with many challenges. There is one famous song that I never missed to hear in every Yospan performance I enjoy is “Mas Kawin” or “wedding gift”. It express how expensive are the wedding gift of Papuan women. The songs says that the gift even could be equal with the prices of water-motor-machine and big bulldozer. Hehehe. There are also another kind of song that describing the connection between human and nature.

With more than 250 tribes the Papua island of Indonesia are the home of big diversity of tradition, values, arts, ceremony and ways of expressing the relation. Dancing if one of the people treasure. A lot of traditional dancing with their specific names and meaning representing specific cultural values in the particular tribes. Song and dancing somehow become the tools of unity that bringing people in any relation to be interact in harmony.

Yospan this afternoon in Sanggeng – Manokwari is the yearly event that tourism department conducts in collaboration with all dancing groups in Manokwari. They said this is part of welcoming the joyful April and voicing up peace in Manokwari. I really enjoy this afternoon with this performance and expects that the event could then help increasing the tourism promotion of the city that recently only well known as the Gospel city.  

Video: Street Yospan in Manokwari