'Mai daling-daling" ...

       

Mai daling-daling samai daling-daling,

Mai daling-daling samai daling-daling,

Mai  daling-daling samai daling-daling.

          The dancers dance softly with the lyrics of the traditional song, Daling-daling song. This was a traditional dance for Bajau native, which is one of the peculiarities of Malaysia’s culture. I once had chance to watch this unique traditional dance in my school, during the ‘school day award’ for the excellent student and I was stunned by the way the dancer dance with their body look so gracefully with the music.  

           Malaysian daling-daling dance was actually a traditional dance that brought by the Suluks from Mindanao archipelago, Phillipines. In other meaning, daling-daling dance was not purely originated from Bajau native in the niche of Sabah parts, Semporna district. Due to the intermingling relationship between the Bajau and Suluk in the previous lifetime, daling-daling dance nowadays are well-known as the Bajau native’s heritage dance especially for the Bajau community in Semporna.

             If we listen to the first and the most words in the song’s lyric, the phrase ‘daling-daling’ were frequently repeated throughout the song. The phrase ‘daling’ was influenced from the English word, ‘darling’ which meant ‘the love one’.

             Previously, the dance is usually performed to entertain guests in various bajau traditional occasions for instance, wedding ceremony and their social occasion. But, nowadays this had been widely performed in many other occasions for example, in school program where the student taught to learned the daling-daling dance by the professional one or during a cultural festival.

              This attractive dance, daling-daling is performed by pairs of men and women. It has its own theme which symbolize and tells a story to the spectators of it. During the dance, few guards will carry poles of bamboos with a beautiful queen sitting on it and her beauty is admired by everyone. Most of the women dancers will wear a thorn-shaped finger’s cover that make their fingers look sharp and long.There are certain of special movements during the dance, a distinct backward-wave finger movements by women. Apart from these, there is also Spanish influence in this dance (since Phillipine had once been living under Spanish rule before) where they stamping and clapping while dancing. Besides, there are some movement which seldomly perform in Sabah where the dancers nimbly jumping while the bamboos are clapped. This might happen because some are still had great influence from the very traditional version one had more into the suluks archipelagos.

          The singer will be in a group of four or more or a soloist singing a song about love, life any many more accompanied by music instruments such the violin, viola and the traditional wooden xylophone also known as ‘Gabang’.

          Daling-daling dance is a precious heritage that should be preserved from now and onwards. It is vital for us work hand in hand to preserve it and pass this cultural dance from generation to generation, hence, our toddlers in next generation can enjoy  and learn the beauty of it, and the important thing is they will not lose from their own cultural identity.