Boria is a form of Malay theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 of Indian

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 origin which has through adaptive processes, become the one and only theatre of Malay community in Penang

Penang

Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...

, Malaysia

History

Records on the origin of Boria are fairly limited but it was first mentioned by H.T. Haughton in 1897 which according to him, it was first brought to Penang in 1845 by the Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 soldiers of 21st Madras Regiment

Madras Regiment

The Madras Regiment is the oldest regiment in the Indian army formed in the 1750s. The regiment has been through many campaigns with both the British Indian Army and the Indian Army.- History :...

. It was originally played to celebrate the annual Shiite festival, the Mourning of Muharram

Mourning of Muharram

The Mourning of Muharram is an important period of mourning in Shia Islam, taking place in Muharram which is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is also called the Remembrance of Muharram...

. In 1910, R.J Wilkinson, a Straits Civil Service officer and a noted scholar of Malay studies, made a comparison between the boria of Madras and Penang

Penang

Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...

, and established that the resemblance was only in name, for the show as then known in Penang had evolved to a totally different form.

The performance

A typical Boria troupe consists of a leader, a chorus, comedians and musicians. The performance normally begins with a short comic sketches and followed by a song-dance routine featuring a juxtaposition of choral and solo parts. The song-dance routine commonly performed in a western music style and with dance forms such as rumba

Rumba

Rumba is a family of percussive rhythms, song and dance that originated in Cuba as a combination of the musical traditions of Africans brought to Cuba as slaves and Spanish colonizers. The name derives from the Cuban Spanish word rumbo which means "party" or "spree". It is secular, with no...

s, Cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha (dance)

The Cha-cha-cha is the name of a dance of Cuban origin.It is danced to the music of the same name introduced by Cuban composer and violinist Enrique Jorrín in 1953...

 or soul.

Boria’s theme varies from Arab warriors, European traders to Chinese shopkeepers around which the costumes and comic improvisations revolved. The main melodic instruments has consistently violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

but various Western, Malay, or Indian drums and Chinese cymbals are also used in the performance.