The traditional performing arts of Malaysia are extremely diverse in nature, taking in the music and dance of the indigenous peoples of both Peninsular and East Malaysia, the Hindu-Buddhist dance-drama traditions associated with the ancient royal courts and the music and dance of the Islamic communities, together with a large corpus of Malay folk music and dance developed over a period of many centuries in the wake of these and other important cultural influences. To these forms, in multicultural Malaysia, must also be added the performing arts of its sizeable Chinese and Indian communities.

Some of the oldest surviving Malaysian performance traditions may be found among the indigenous Orang Asli communities of Peninsular Malaysia, which survive only in small numbers and in scattered groups throughout the Malay Peninsula. Of the three main sub-groups, the Negrito communities (incorporating the Bateq, Jahai, Kensui, Kintak, Lanoh and Mendriq peoples) are found mostly in Kelantan, Pahang, Perak and Terengganu, the Senoi (incorporating the Che Wong, Jahut, Mahmeri, Semai, Semoq Beri and Temiar peoples) mainly in Kelantan, Pahang, Perak and Selangor, and the Proto-Malay (including Jakun, Orang Kanaq, Orang Laut, Orang Seletar, Semelai and Temuan) majoritively in Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang.

While performance styles vary significantly from community to community among the Orang Asli, music, song and dance invariably function together with the production of art objects as an expression of animist beliefs, performed since time immemorial to commemorate the whole cycle of social events, including birth, male initiation, female puberty, courtship, marriage, warfare, a good harvest and death.

Orang Asli music and dance has much in common with that of Melanesia, to the people of which the Orang Asli are distantly related. Musical accompaniment is generally provided by instruments made from natural materials, including bamboo mouth-blown and nose flutes, bamboo zithers, bamboo stampers, jew's harps, metal mouth harps and (a later Malay influence) gongs; the dance which it accompanies is performed mainly in groups, although some interesting solo masked dances performed in imitation of animal or spirit figures are also to be found.

The performance traditions of the Dayak communities of East Malaysia also contain elements of great antiquity. Here too, music, song and dance are an integral component of the many feasts and rituals which mark the passing of the seasons in traditional society.

The largest indigenous group in Sarawak is that of the Iban people, a predominantly farming society whose settlement is concentrated mainly in the basins of the Lower Rajang, Saribas and Batang Lupar rivers. Other important groups which practise settled agriculture include the Bidayuhs, who live upstream from Kuching, and the coastal-dwelling Melanaus, Kedayans and Bisayas. In the upland regions, living as shifting cultivators, hunters and collectors of jungle produce are the Kayans, the Kenyahs, the Muruts and the Kelabits.

In Sabah the largest indigenous group are the Kadazan-Dusun, an agricultural people who grow rice through irrigation. Other important farming communities include those of Sabah's second largest indigenous group, the Bajaus, a collective term which describes a number of predominantly Muslim maritime communities originating from the southern Philippines, the Rungus of the Kudat and Bengkoka peninsulas, the Tambanuo, Kimarangan and Sanayo of the Bengkoka, Kaindangan, Tengarason and Sugut river valleys and the Minokok and Tengara of the upper Kinabatangan river. Numerous Murut communities are also to be found in the state.

With some two hundred different Dayak tribes located throughout the island of Borneo, great diversity characterizes the indigenous performance tradition, although certain common elements are to be found.

Prior to the fourteenth century the Dayak instrumentarium is likely to have been fabricated entirely of natural materials, and indeed musical instruments made of bamboo and wood continue to play an important role in indigenous music-making today. Bamboo gongs such as the togunggak or tagunggak of the Kadazan Dusun and Murut peoples of Sabah and the pirunchong of the Bidayuh of Sarawak are often used in lieu of metal gongs, along with a variety of other ideophones such as Sabah's gambang or wooden xylophone (often used in conjunction with vertical slit wooden gongs known as kantung) and membranophones such as the Iban hourglass drum or ketebong of Sarawak, the single-headed karatung drum of the Kadazan Dusun and the double-headed gandang drum of the Bajau.

A range of different-sized end-blown bamboo mouth flutes, known variously among the Bidayuh of Sarawak as branchi, kroto and nchiyo and throughout much of Sabah as suling, are also in use, as are bamboo nose flutes such as the silingut of the Orang Ulu communities of Sarawak and the turali of the Kadazan Dusun communities of Sabah.

Another instrument in common use throughout Borneo is the cylindrical bamboo zither with strings cut out of it, known among the Bidayuh as tinton, among the Orang Ulu as satong and among the Kadazan Dusun as tongkungon.

A bamboo-and-gourd mouth-organ akin to the Lao-Isaan khene is used widely throughout Borneo; in Sabah it is known as sompoton or (in its smaller upland version) sigi, while its larger Sarawakian cousin is the keladi.

Perhaps the most popular instrument found in Borneo is the sape, a delicate four-stringed lute carved from the trunk of a tree and found among the Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit, Penan and other upland Orang Ulu groups of Sarawak. Its Sabahian counterpart is the long-necked sundatang lute of the Kadazan Dusun and Lotud Dusun peoples.

Metal gongs were not traditionally made in Borneo, and it is believed that the instruments of the gong-chime tradition were increasingly traded in via Brunei in the wake of that sultanate's rise to prominence during the fourteenth century. Subsequently, under the strong influence of Javanese and Malay culture, the gong-chime ensemble became a key element of the performance which accompanied indigenous ritual ceremonies and large-scale social gatherings. Extant gong and drum ensembles include the engkerumong of Sarawak (Iban, Bidayuh), the sopogandangan or sompogogungan (Kadazan Dusun) of Sabah and, in coastal areas, the Philippine-style kulintangan; all these ensembles incorporate large individual gongs, suspended sets of smaller gongs and drums.

Music is performed in its own right, as an accompaniment to singing, or in conjunction with the many different Dayak dances. In the latter connection the accompaniment it provides is predominantly percussive, with the colourfully costumed dancers often supplementing the rhythm by singing and clapping their hands.

East Malaysia boasts an enormous variety of indigenous dances, most of which traditionally bore a deep ritual significance. However, in recent years the emphasis on ritual has steadily disappeared, to be replaced in many dances by a more celebratory function; such is the nature of the dances presented as substantive performances in modern Borneo.

One of the most important traditional dances emanating from Sarawak is the ngajat, a generic dance style performed by the Iban and several other Dayak groups and found in a number of different forms. Among the Iban the most noteworthy are the welcoming dance ngajat nganti penatai temuai, the harvest festival dance ngajat lesong and the war dance ngajat pahlawan. All variations of ngajat make use of spectacular costumes and head-dresses and are performed to the accompaniment of gongs and bamboo percussion.

Other noteworthy dances from Sarawak include the datun julut, a traditional dance performed by the Orang Ulu to celebrate the return of warriors from a successful raid or war, and its related warrior dance, the kanjet ngeleput; the mengarang menyak of the Melanau, which depicts the processing of the sago palm; and from the Bidayuh community, the langgi pinyambut and langgi pingadep welcoming dances and the tolak bala harvest dance.

From Sabah comes the sumazau, one of the best-known Kadazan dances, which involves two rows of men and women dancing slowly and rhythmically, face to face, in their characteristic, beautifully decorated black costumes. Accompaniment for this dance, which also features hand movements likened to the flight of birds, is provided by gongs and drums of varying sizes. Other important dances from Sabah include the andui-andui and berunsai social dances of the Bajau and Murut peoples. The latter group often perform on a special wooden platform sprung with bamboo, known as a lansaran.

Among the Malay community, elements of a pre-Hindu-Buddhist tradition are also preserved in a number of proto-theatrical forms. As elsewhere in Asia, ancient animistic genres such as epic recitation, poetry games and shamanism contributed significantly to the development of traditional Malay theatre. A number of these proto-theatrical forms are still to be found today.

The singing of epics, penglipur lara, survives in the form of awang batil (Perlis) and awang selampit (Kelantan), while pantun singing, in which performers present memorized newly composed verse arranged in quatrains, is still found in some rural areas. Call-and-response singing is also undoubtedly a very ancient genre in Malaysia, and was to form the basis for several later performance styles, including the Islamic-influenced dikir barat from Kelantan and boria from Pinang, as well as the Straits-Chinese-influenced dondang sayang, a style of musical repartee set to the accompaniment of violin, drums and a gong which became popular in Melaka towards the end of the nineteenth century and later spread to Pinang and Singapore.

Trance-dances persist in a number of different forms. The ulek bandul dance centres on the communication of a female dancer with the rice spirit, while the ulek meyang features a man holding an arca-nut root entering into a trance to the chant of a male chorus. One of the best-known trance-dances is the Johor/Selangor possession rite kuda kepang, which involves men possessed by horse spirits performing various amazing feats. The latter often appears as part of the reog or barongan dance-theatre which Malaysia shares with Indonesia, in which the mythical lion-figure of Balinese fame appears. Perhaps most significant of all such forms is the main puteri, a therapeutic dance-theatre style found in Terengganu, Kelantan and some parts of southern Thailand, in which male healers (tok puteri) enter a trance, diagnose and then treat (usually female) patients to the accompaniment of a spiked violin or rebab and a copper gong.

The classical Malay music and dance tradition began to evolve during the latter half of the first millennium AD in the wake of developments in the Indonesian archipelago. The Srivijayan kings of Sumatera (eighth to thirteenth centuries) are thought to have been the first South-East Asian rulers to use female dance as an integral part of the ritual surrounding the devaraja ideology of divine kingship; their lead was subsequently followed by the Sailendra and Mataram rulers of Java, who took the process one stage further by sponsoring the development of related courtly performance genres, commissioning distinctive Javanese reworkings of the great Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata as source material and confirming the pre-eminence of the gong-chime as a source of courtly music.

In subsequent centuries the devaraja ideology and its associated performance genres spread throughout mainland South-East Asia, a key point of dissemination being the Khmer kingdom of Angkor. Evidence that this development did not overlook the kingdoms of the Malay Peninsula may be found in the northernmost states bordering what was the once kingdom of Pattani (now Thai territory), and in the southernmost state of Johor, where the music of the gamelan and the shadow theatre and female dance traditions of the ancient court traditions still remain relatively strong today.

Under the influence of Java from the eighth century onwards, the gong-chime ensemble rapidly supplanted the older indigenous bamboo and wooden instrumentarium to become an indispensable feature of Malay courtly culture; thus did the embryonic gamelan find its way from Indonesia to Malaysia. While its size and format can vary widely according to its function, the Malay gamelan today generally incorporates the rebab or spiked violin, the serunai or reed oboe, the saron or bronze xylophone, a variety of different drums including the single-headed gedombak and the double-headed gendang and gedok, large hanging gongs known as tetawak, small gongs suspended in a frame known as canang, and metal clappers known as kesi.

As in Indonesia, the Malay gamelan provides the basic musical accompaniment to many different types of traditional theatre, in addition to performing music in its own right. An aristocratic style of gamelan music known as nobat subsequently evolved in the courts of the Malay Peninsula and is still performed today for state and other special occasions.

Four types of Malaysian shadow puppetry may currently be identified, the origins of which also date back to pre-Islamic Javanese influence in the Malay peninsula.

The most widely distributed, popular and aesthetically unique of the Malay forms is wayang kulit kelantan (formerly known as wayang kulit siam), which uses smaller puppets than its Javanese counterpart and is presented largely through the medium of Kelantanese dialect in the border provinces of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang, and in southern Thailand. It recounts stories based on the Malay epic Hikayat Seri Rama, the Malay version of the Ramayana.

Wayang gedek is found in the north-east (particularly Kedah and Perlis), and uses flimsy translucent puppets to recount popular local stories, either through Kedah dialect or through a dialect of southern Thailand. It is clearly related in form to the Thai shadow theatre nang talung.

Wayang purwa may be found throughout the southern part of the east coast, mainly in Johor. It is performed in Javanese or in local Malay dialect, mostly by villagers of Javanese descent, and recounts episodes from the Pendawa Jawa, a Javanese derivative of the Mahabharata. However, although it is very similar to its ancient Javanese counterpart and would appear to have developed in the same way, it does not make use of the Panji cycle as source material for its stories.

A now rarely peformed shadow theatre known as wayang melayu derives from the east coast, particularly Kelantan and Terengganu. Recounting episodes from the Javanese Pendawa Lima, a version of the Mahabharata, it is presented in both Javanese and local dialect.

In each type of wayang kulit, a single tok dalang manipulates the puppets, narrates, chants and controls the accompanying gamelan ensemble. The latter usually comprises six drums (two gendang, two gedombak and two geduk), two large hanging gongs (tetawak), two small horizontal gongs (canang), an oboe (serunai) and metal clappers (kesi). Regrettably, public performances of wayang kulit in Malaysia have declined drastically in number since the 1930s, when there were over 130 dalang. Today, in marked contrast to Indonesia's flourishing shadow theatre scene, only a handful of Malaysian tok dalangs are active. This situation is perpetuated in the state of Kelantan by the policies of the fundamentalist government, which has pronounced wayang kulit to be un-Islamic owing to its Hindu elements and banned its performance to all but tourists.

While the court associations of the extant northern Malay/southern Thai classical dance-drama forms mak yong, mek mulung and manohra may with certainty be traced back only a few centuries, it is believed that forerunners of these dance-dramas were performed in the Malay courts as early as the Hindu-Buddhist period.

Corresponding very loosely to the Khmer/ Thai classical dance tradition, mak yong comprises a wide repertoire of dramatized stories about legendary princes and princesses enacted by female dancers and male clowns, accompanied by a musical ensemble comprising a rebab, two gendang drums, gongs and sometimes also a serunai. The fact that the dance is often presented in conjunction with the ancient shamanistic ritual main puteri in the belief that it possesses magical healing properties would suggest that, rather than importing Javanese court theatre wholesale during the Srivijaya era, the early Malay kings chose instead to adapt ancient indigenous proto-theatrical forms for presentation at their courts, superimposing elements such as the female wife-dancer whose presence at court had come to epitomize potent kingship in the Srivijayan dominions of Java and Sumatera.

A number of elderly mak yong troupes may still be found today in Kelantan, across the border in southern Thailand and also in the Indonesian islands of Riau, off the north coast of Sumatera. However, the continued survival of mak yong in Malaysia into the next millennium seems unlikely - it is currently banned from presentation to all but tourists by the fundamentalist government in Kelantan because of its presentation of men and women performing together on stage and the fantasy elements in its stories.

Manohra shares some features with mak yong but is quite distinct in its use of music and its emphasis on dance rather than on the story. It is thought to have developed at the royal court of Pattani, whence it spread into the Malaysian states of Kedah and Kelantan. Using both female and male dancers to enact the legend of the eponymous half-bird, half-human heroine of the jataka (stories of the lives of the Buddha), manohra also traditionally served a ritual purpose and is still believed to be performed with the help of supernatural forces. The manohra dance is often followed by a repertoire of dramatized stories, apparently a later embellishment which combines with the dance to make up a complete three-night performance of nora chatri - this has developed in neighbouring Thailand into the popular theatre form lakhon chatri. Accompaniment is provided by an ensemble comprising serunai, two gedung, two gedumbak, kesi, bamboo or wood clappers and gongs. There are only two surviving active manohra troupes in Malaysia, both located in Kelantan. As with mak yong, the future for the genre currently looks bleak.

Mek mulong, a dance-drama unique to the village of Wang Tepus in neighbouring Kedah which recounts a local legend about an eponymous king, is believed to derive from the same basic sources as manohra and mak yong. Only one family troupe performs this genre, which has been handed down from generation to generation since its inception and features song and dance set to the acompaniment of the serembong, gong, serunai and ceruk.

The court dances tarian asyik from Kelantan (which was formerly performed at the royal palace of Pattani and shares some elements of movement and costuming with mak yong), joget gamelan from Terengganu and terinai mengadap from Perlis may similarly trace their origins back to the Malay kingdoms of the Hindu-Buddhist period.

Infiltrating the Peninsula from the fourteenth century onwards, Islam also bequeathed an important legacy to Malaysian music and dance, leading in some areas to the emergence of Islamic variants of older Hindu- Buddhist forms, and in others to the creation of new performance styles generically akin to those found among Muslim communities in neighbouring Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and the southern Philippines.

Musical instruments associated with Islamic culture such as the gambus (a lute of Middle-Eastern origins), the harmonium, the mandolin and the tambourine were steadily introduced into the Malay tradition, along with a range of performance styles which combined Islamic devotional chanting with body movement. Extant Islamic-influenced music and dance includes a range of styles which combine Islamic devotional chanting with body movement. Falling into this category are hadrah from Kedah and zapin from Johor; the latter has also given rise to a substantive dance, tari zapin. Also noteworthy is dikir barat, the devotional call-and-response singing of Terengganu and Perak, which is believed later to have inspired the creation of the popular Malay theatre form jikey. In both Selangor and southern Perak dikir barat is performed as an integral component of the dabus dance form.

Other important styles influenced by the pan-Islamic tradition include boria, a type of folk performance found only in Pulau Pinang which combines music, dance, comic sketches and social criticism, and ghazal, a genre thought to derive from Johor, in which male or female singers perform rhymed verses carrying didactic messages about love, ethics and morality to the accompaniment of a large ensemble featuring drums, gongs, harmonium, mandolin and violin. The Muslim processional style hamdolok, performed as part of the folk festivals of Johor, is also noteworthy.

In contrast to the foregoing, the great majority of Malaysian dances performed today owe their existence not to patronage by the royal courts or to foreign cultural influence but to the folk life of the ordinary people. Most originated as celebrations of everyday events and pastimes, such as courtship (tarian lilin and tarian siti payung), fishing (tarian jala ikan and tarian cinta sayong), cockfighting (tarian ayam diding), and kite flying (tarian cik siti wau bulan). Some were performed to celebrate prowess in war (tarian gayong otar-otar), while others (tarian balai and tarian hala) were devised as an act of propitiation to the god of the rice fields in order to secure a good harvest. Today these, along with other more recently devised dances, provide the Malaysian tourist industry with colourful, bite-sized and instantly accessible product for presentation at MATIC in Kuala Lumpur and at trade fairs both at home and abroad.

In this context mention should also be made of dances which are not, strictly speaking, part of the Malay tradition, but which have entered the Tari Melayu repertoire as examples of the country's rich multicultural tradition. These include Chinese-Malay dances, Indian-Malay dances and even the European-inspired tarian portugis.

During the last two hundred years various popular theatre styles have emerged in Malaysia to cater for the entertainment needs of the growing urban communities. One of the earliest such genres was jikey, an important popular theatre form emanating from the northern states bordering Thailand, which is believed to have developed out of the Islamic chant genre dikir barat and in turn to have inspired the establishment of its Thai counterpart likay and Khmer cousin yike. Jikey is an operatic style of folk theatre which involves a company of twelve to sixteen persons performing mainly stories based on local legends and fairy tales, to the accompaniment of an ensemble of both traditional and modern instruments.

Undoubtedly the most important development in Malay popular theatre - and one which would subsequently have a significant influence throughout South-East Asia - took place along the affluent west coast of Peninsular Malaysia during the late ninetenth century. The popular theatre form bangsawan (bangsa: people; wan: noble) is believed to have been created in emulation of visiting Indian parsi theatre troupes, which performed Indian, Arabic and Shakespearian plays throughout the region during the 1870s. Making pioneering use of realistic stage props and elaborate scenery, it recounted stories taken from Malay history and folk-tales, Arabian romances, Islamic literature and everyday life.

From humble beginnings in Pulau Pinang, bangsawan subsequently became a very popular form of entertainment in pre- and post-war Malaysia. Toured widely throughout South-East Asia, it was to influence the development of modern theatre as far afield as Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. Although it is still performed today by a small number of troupes, bangsawan was eclipsed in the 1940s and 1950s by sandiwara, a spoken drama form which used a written script and, notwithstanding its presentation on mixed bills together with dance-dramas and pantomimes, was more akin to contemporary theatre. From sandiwara it was but a small step to the contemporary drama of today.

The many different Chinese communities of Malaysia have for centuries preserved and indeed actively promoted the traditional performing arts traditions of their homeland, despite the fact that non-bumiputra art forms normally receive no subsidy from the Malaysian Government. Chinese traditional performing arts, including Chinese opera in Cantonese, Teochew (Chaozhou), Hainanese and Peking styles, Chinese music and Chinese dance, are performed widely by professional and amateur community groups and by troupes belonging to state Chinese cultural associations, both throughout the Malay Peninsula and in East Malaysia.

The culturally conscious Indian communities of Malaysia are also active in the teaching and presentation of Indian traditional performing arts throughout the country, including music, dance, theatre and puppetry.

Modern Malay drama came of age in the 1960s, with the emergence of single-play melodramas. Since that time, accomplished playwrights such as Noordin Hassan and Khalid Salleh have appeared and a number of important theatre companies such as Grup Teater Aktif and Kumpulan Teater Utama Kuala Lumpur have emerged. The National Cultural Troupe currently runs a six- to-twelve-play Malay drama season at the MATIC Auditorium in Kuala Lumpur.

English-language drama has also undergone a rise in popularity among all sections of the community over the last ten years, during which time a great deal of innovative work has been produced by Kuala-Lumpar-based artists such as writer K. S. Maniam and directors Krishen Jit and Chin San-sooi. Malaysia's only fully professional English-language theatre company is Instant Cafe Theatre Company Sdn Bhd, but the multi-disciplinary Five Arts Centre benefits from professional input in its dramatic presentations and high creative standards are also maintained by semi-professional drama groups such as the Actors' Studio, Kamikasih Productions and the Liberal Arts Society. Modern Chinese-language drama is also produced regularly, though at present only on an amateur basis, by Malaysia's various Chinese cultural associations.

Kuala Lumpur has a small but active contemporary dance scene. Leading exponents of the genre include choreographer Marion D'Cruz (Marion D'Cruz and Dancers), Mohammed Ghouse Nasaruddin and Ramli Ibrahim (Sutra), whose work regularly attempts to fuse modern and traditional dance elements. The Selangor Kwangsi Dance Troupe also performs new work influenced by traditional Chinese dance.

Innovative multi-disciplinary work is staged regularly through the auspices of the Five Arts Centre, which combines the creative talents of dramatists Krishen Jit and Chin San-sooi, choreographer Marion D'Cruz and (according to the type of production staged) artists from other disciplines such as visual art, film and video. The company undertakes extensive arts education work and also holds regular exchanges with Theatreworks of Singapore (see Singapore), in pursuit of its desire to build a regional perspective in the arts.

The western classical music scene in Malaysia is still in its infancy, the fully professional National Symphony Orchestra and National Choir having been established only in 1993. As yet Malaysia has no national ballet or opera company.

The Malaysian film industry dates from 1933 when the first feature Laila Majnun was directed by two Indian nationals in Singapore, prior to the latter's independence. Thereafter, until the outbreak of war, Malay film production consisted primarily of cinematic versions of bangsawan.

Film production revived in 1947 with the establishment of Malay Film Productions Ltd, an early venture of the Shaw brothers, who later took over Studio Merdeka; they remained active in Malaysia until the 1970s. The biggest star of the 1950s and 1960s was P. Ramlee (1928-1973), who had a major influence on Malay cinema, not only as a writer but also as a writer and director.

The 1970s saw the emergence of a new wave of independent film-makers known as the bumiputeras, including Deddy M. Borhan, Othman Hafsham, Rahim Razali, Zarul Hisham, Azmil Mustapha and Johari Ibrahim. However, notwithstanding the government's efforts to develop the film industry it has since experienced a steady decline. Official films are still produced regularly by Filem Negara Malaysia.

Vocational training in traditional and contemporary performing arts is administered by a number of institutions of learning in Malaysia. Undergraduate studies in performing arts and music and postgraduate studies in performing arts are offered by the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, and undergraduate studies in performing arts by the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur; the new Universiti Malaysia Sarawak is expected to launch similar programmes in 1995. The new National Academy of Arts in Kuala Lumpur offers diploma programmes in creative (i.e. script) writing, dance, music and theatre. Diploma programmes majoring in music and drama (incorporating some training in Chinese performing arts) are taught by the Institut Seni Lukis Malaysia (Malaysian Institute of Art) in Kuala Lumpur. There are also a variety of small private music and dance colleges throughout the country.

Malaysia's rich artistic heritage is preserved in a number of different forms of cultural expression, ranging from the Hindu- Buddhist temple ruins of the first millennium to the istana (sultans' residences) and colonial architecture of the second. Today that heritage is also actively perpetuated throughout the country by Malaysia's thriving crafts industry.

By the time of independence, many forms of traditional handicraft prevalent in former times among the Malay and indigenous communities of both Peninsular and East Malaysia had been displaced by modern manufactures. However, over the past decade agencies such as the Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation have fostered the revival of handicraft production with an eye to the growing tourist market, and the states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah and Sarawak are now once more active in this area.

Metalwork, especially brass and silver ware, was at one time produced very widely, although centres of production are fewer in number today. Brassware is still a major local occupation in Terengganu, home of traditional white brass (tembaga putih). The silversmiths of Kelantan are especially noted for their fine and delicate filigree (twisted silver wire) and repousse (hammered sheet silver) silvercraft, while the Maloh people of Sarawak also produce silverware of high quality. Complementing these cottage industries, pewterware (an amalgam of refined tin, antimony and copper) from Setapak in Selangor has become a highly profitable export industry.

A related craft form is the production of the keris, the ancient Malay silver dagger handed down from generation to generation by the head of the family; however, authentic keris production has all but ceased in contemporary Malaysia, the weapon nowadays being produced mainly for the tourist market.

Ceramic production takes place at a number of centres; in Perak, black ceramic jars from Sayong near Kuala Kangsar known as labuh sayong have acquired a distinct popularity, while at Pulau Tiga, south of Ipoh, reddish jars with floral motifs are produced; the Aw Pottery at Air Hitam in Johor also produces a wide range of items, from traditional to modern. Sarawak too has a thriving pottery industry, producing distinctive jars and vases decorated with indigenous ethnic designs for both the domestic and tourist markets.

Weaving is one of Malaysia's best-known craft forms, with each district having its own characteristic style and motive. The woven cloths of Kelantan and Terengganu have acquired an international reputation; best known of all are the gold- or silver-threaded cloths (kain songket) of the east-coast states, once the exclusive preserve of the royal courts but now used widely by all sections of society on formal or ceremonial occasions such as weddings or convocations. A more recent innovation is kain batik, cloth imprinted with various designs by the application, on muslin stencils, of a mixture of wax and resin. A technique introduced from Indonesia in the early years of the present century, batik production has, since World War II, become firmly entrenched as a major industry in both Kelantan and Terengganu.

The art of handwriting also exists in many forms. Both Chinese calligraphy and the art of writing Islamic texts in Jawi or Arabic script - known as khat - have been developed to a fine art in Malaysia, and practitioners of these disciplines may be found respectively at centres of Chinese and Islamic culture throughout the country.

In addition to the aforementioned metal-work and ceramics, important indigenous art forms practised in both Orang Asli and Dayak communities include the carving of wooden masks and totems, ethnic textile production and the weaving of pandanus leaf and bamboo into various household items.

In contrast to Indonesia and the Philippines, Malaysia had no established tradition of painting in either eastern or western traditions at the time of independence in 1957; prior to this date contemporary art had tended to take the form of landscapes in watercolour in the British manner or portraits in the Dutch-European style.

By the early 1960s a strong tradition of abstraction had emerged among the growing community of Malaysian artists, but until the inception of the MARA Institute of Technology in 1966, Malaysian art continued to be highly derivative. By the early 1970s work was increasingly becoming infused with indigenous subject matter, and today Islam, ethnicity and culture and other themes are creatively addressed through a variety of media including abstract and figurative painting, sculpture, installation art, video art and performance art.

Contemporary Malaysian artists of note - all of whom are represented in the collection of the Balai Seni Lukis Negara - include Ibrahim Hussein, Chang Fee-ming, Chuah Thean-teng, Tay Hooi-keat, Abdul Latiff Mohidin and Khalil Ibrahim.

Tertiary visual art training in Malaysia is usually offered in conjunction with design. Art and design programmes are offered by the Institut Teknologi MARA and the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, while graphic arts are taught by the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur; the new Universiti Malaysia Sarawak is expected to launch an art and design course in 1995. Diploma programmes majoring in art and design are presented by the Institut Seni Lukis Malaysia (Malaysian Institute of Art) in Kuala Lumpur, while numerous small non-tertiary art and design colleges are situated in key centres of population.

Mention must also be made of the work of the Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation, an arm of the government with branches in every state which co-ordinates vocational training and development for the Malaysian handicraft industry.