How Traditional Performance Changes on YouTube
Janger Banyuwangi is a traditional performance form that brings together dramatic narrative, dance, music, comedy, audience participation, and other elements within a staged event. When such performances are recorded and uploaded to YouTube, however, the original event can be reorganized into different video formats.
The researchers describe these separately addressable videos as digital performance objects. A video page has its own title, thumbnail, description, uploader information, duration, and URL. These features can make a particular part of a performance easier to find and access independently from the longer event from which it originated.
The distinction matters because a video recording, a YouTube page, and the original stage event are not the same thing. Two different URLs can document the same performance occasion, while videos featuring the same story do not necessarily come from the same event.
Study Examines 16 Videos from Four Janger Groups
Saputra and colleagues used a qualitative comparative approach to examine 16 publicly accessible YouTube videos associated with four Janger groups: Sri Budoyo Pangestu, New Sastra Dewa, Krishna Buana, and Karisma Dewata.
The researchers examined video metadata, uploader framing, video boundaries, performance forms, and identifiable relationships between videos and performance events. Six videos were selected for audiovisual examination, while NSD-02, a recording of Jaran Goyang, received detailed timecoded analysis. The researchers also distinguished the publication date of a video from the date when the original performance took place.
This approach allowed the researchers to compare long performance recordings with shorter videos featuring particular elements without automatically treating every upload as a separate staged performance.
Seven Forms of Digital Janger Objects
The 16 videos revealed seven distinguishable forms of Janger content on YouTube:
- Extended performance recordings, including multihour performances.
- Narrative or lakon videos, centered on a particular story.
- Opening or pambuko performances presented as separate uploads.
- Dance videos, such as Tari Jaran Goyang.
- Music or berdendang videos, including songs and music compilations.
- Comedy or dagelan videos, featuring comic sections of performances.
- Serialized narratives, in which longer stories are divided into separate installments.
The researchers emphasize that these categories describe the way performances are published and framed on the platform. A video labeled “full lakon” does not automatically prove that it contains the entire original staged programme.
A Live Performance Looks Different Through the Camera
The study also examines how YouTube recordings communicate the sense of a live performance.
In the NSD-02 recording, musicians and spectators are visible at the beginning, followed by views of the New Sastra Dewa stage and a dance performance. The sound continues while the camera shifts between the performers and the wider setting. At other moments, closer shots concentrate attention on the dancers while excluding much of the surrounding audience.
These observations show that the camera does more than simply document the event. It determines which parts of the performance are visible to an online viewer.
The researchers therefore distinguish between platform-marked liveness and performative liveness. A “LIVE” label or similar marking identifies how an uploader presents a recording, but it does not mean that someone watching the video later is experiencing the performance at the same time as the original audience.
As the researchers explain, liveness can remain perceptible through recorded sound, performers, spectators, and the continuity of the event, while camera framing and editing determine how much of that experience reaches the remote viewer.
One Event Can Produce Multiple Digital Objects
One of the study's central findings is that disaggregation does not necessarily mean multiplication of the original performance event.
For example, the NSD-G01 group of uploads connects a Tari Jaran Goyang video with a longer Geger Kedawung/Prabu Tawangalun recording. They have different URLs and descriptive emphasis, but the evidence indicates a relationship to the same staged occasion. The separate uploads therefore create different digital objects without proving that two separate performances occurred.
The researchers identify three important processes: disaggregation, in which an integrated performance is separated into digital units; recontextualization, in which those units receive new titles, descriptions, thumbnails, and URLs; and fragment autonomy, which describes how independently a particular segment can function as a digital performance object.
Not every fragment has the same degree of independence. A separately uploaded dance may function relatively independently, while a video labeled “Part 1” remains connected to a longer narrative.
Implications for Cultural Preservation
The findings have implications for digital documentation and preservation of Indonesian performing arts. Simply saving individual YouTube links may not be enough to preserve the relationship between a video and the cultural event from which it originated.
The researchers recommend maintaining event-level provenance alongside segmented videos. Useful information can include the troupe, performance title or lakon, verified location and performance date where available, uploader identity, video ID, publication date, and links to related videos.
For cultural organizations, researchers, and digital archives, connecting short clips with longer recordings from the same event can help preserve the context behind individual digital objects.
The study does not establish audience behavior, algorithmic promotion, ownership of recordings, or monetization patterns. Its conclusions are based on observable video content, metadata, uploader framing, and identifiable relationships between performance recordings.
Authors
The article was written by Heru S.P. Saputra, Wiwin Indiarti, Mochamad Ilham, Dominikus Rato, Titik Maslikatin, Lilis Yuliati, Edy Hariyadi, Panakajaya Hidayatullah, and Siswanto.
Saputra and authors 3–9 are affiliated with the Metakultura Research Center, Universitas Jember, Indonesia, while Wiwin Indiarti is affiliated with the Study Program in English Language Education, Universitas PGRI Banyuwangi, Indonesia. The article focuses on Janger Banyuwangi, digital performance, cultural circulation, platformization, and mediated liveness. The published article does not provide the individual academic degrees of the authors, so no degrees are added here.
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