Reog art with its various elements has repeatedly carved records at the Indonesian World Record Museum (MURI). The parade of 312 reog groups that appeared along Jalan Hadji Oemar Said (HOS) Tjokroaminoto and Jalan Jenderal Sudirman Ponorogo, Wednesday (10/8/2022), broke another record in Indonesia. The day before, Tuesday (9/8/2022), 2,022 poets who collaborated with 100 Sufi dancers first made a record. MURI also set a record when 19,271 children from PAUD and Kindergarten students from 21 sub-districts in Ponorogo performed a mass dance of Krido Warok Cilik on June 15 2022.
The parade of 312 reog groups amazed the public at the same time. Almost all villages and sub-districts in Ponorogo included reog groups complete with Dadak merak, pujangganong, jathil dancers, and complete gamelan musicians. It is called reog obyok because it appears on the streets and not on the festival stage. “So far, Reog has evolved. At first it was reog obyok and then a festival version appeared,” said Ponorogo Regent Sugiri Sancoko.
The parade of hundreds of reog obyok seemed to remind the tradition of every Muharam in Ponorogo which had stopped for almost four decades. In the 1980s, every reog group representing the village in Ponorogo came to the town square to perform on the 1st of Suro. The audience always crowds when there is a reog obyok performance. Almost every intersection in the city area there is always a reog performance. kom
