In modern Indonesia, the word tradisi ("tradition" or "traditional" in English) is typically associated with performing arts events that are meant to evoke a sense of history and continuity by featuring costumes, gestures, and music that are regarded as having originated in the distant past. Ironically, most "traditional" Indonesian arts are modern inventions. Sundanese "traditional" dance, such as jaipongan and ibing keurseus, are no exceptions.

In this paper I explore what it means to be "traditional" in the case of Sundanese dance. I propose that an enduring essence of Sundanese dance lies in men's improvisational dancing. Although men's improvisational dance events looked and sounded different at various times and places and under different social circumstances, they all share an underlying armature: a "triangle" consisting of (1) a specialist female singer-dancer, (2) drumming that seems to animate dancers, and (3) a sense of freedom on the part of participating men. In present-day West Java, some old-fashioned versions of such dance events provided the raw materials (i.e., sounds and gestures) for modern presentational dances such as jaipongan and ibing keurseus. These new "traditional" dances, however, do not preserve the underlying "triangle." I argue that this is one reason that these "traditional" dances do not capture the hearts and minds of many Sundanese audiences. Instead, many people prefer dangduta popular music and dance style whose sounds come from India, Malaysia, and the West. In my view, dangdut has become a preferred vehicle for Sundanese dancing because the Sundanese dance "triangle" can be inscribed upon it. On the surface, dangdut music may sound anything but Sundanese, but it is this underlying "triangle," rather than surface details, that enables a more authentically Sundanese engagement with music and dance.