Jurai Sembah

This issue of Jurai Sembah presents seven scholarly articles examining performance, music, dance, film, and arts education as culturally situated practices shaped by history, identity, pedagogy, and social transformation across Asia and Southeast Asia.

A central focus of this volume lies in heritage and cultural sustainability. Several contributions investigate traditional forms such as Jinnan Drum Dance of Shanxi, Sabah Gong ensemble music, and Keroncong within contemporary contexts influenced by globalization, digital mediation, and formal education. These studies foreground cultural meaning, community participation, and pedagogical structuring as essential dimensions of sustaining living traditions.

Arts education emerges as another significant thematic domain. Articles addressing ethno-epistemic ontology in postgraduate performing arts study and competencies of dance teachers under aesthetic education reform explore shifts in pedagogical orientation, professional identity, and curriculum design. Attention is given to reflective learning, cultural grounding, and student-centered educational practice across diverse institutional contexts.

The relationship between music and well-being is examined through research on maqām-based oud listening within receptive music therapy. Cultural sound systems are positioned as effective resources for emotional regulation and physiological response within culturally adaptive therapeutic frameworks.

Questions of representation, satire, and postcolonial identity are explored through film analysis of Labu dan Labi. Satirical strategies are analyzed as mechanisms for social critique, cultural negotiation, and the articulation of Malay identity in postcolonial Malaysia.

Taken together, the articles in this issue reflect Jurai Sembah’s ongoing engagement with interdisciplinary research in the performing arts, emphasizing heritage, education, embodiment, identity, and socio-cultural change within Asian contexts.