THE year is 2008. One fine day in Somagede, director Ifa Ifansyah sits in awe of the breathtaking landscape strewn with rice fields, wild grasses, and the stands of trees and hills adorning a quaint hamlet in Banyumas, Central Java. This small village later became the place in which the shooting of The Dancer takes place.

The Dancer is adapted from the Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk trilogy by novelist Ahmad Tohari. However, the film is a somewhat loose in