Recreolization as Decolonial Dramaturgy: Tansi Language in Tonel Performance, Sawahlunto City

Abstract

Tonel performance in the city of Sawahlunto is practiced by the ethnic community who speak the Tansi creole language. Sawahlunto in tropical West Sumatra, Indonesia, was built by the Dutch colonialists in the late 19th century as a coal mining center based on the labor of local people and the forced labor of convicts of various ethnicities sent from around Indonesia. The multiethnic population developed a pidgin language which later became the Tansi creole language. This article discusses a new strategy for developing Tonel dramaturgy, which emerged through performances at the Sawahlunto Cultural Festival in 2021. Paying attention to the theatrical communication that occurs in Tonel performance, this study analyses how changes in the Tansi language used during performances, can be recognized as processes of decreolization and recreolization. The recreolization process proved to be a way to break the remnants of the continuing effects of colonialism in the Tansi culture. By changing words or adding new words to the Tansi language during the performances, the Tansi community builds a new dramaturgy based in a practice of cultural decoloniality through Tonel performance. This decolonial practice is particularly significant in the currrent development of Sawahlunto as a postcolonial mining tourism city, and the detangling of its colonial legacy.