The dance was created by Gugum Gumbira, based on the traditional Sundanese Ketuk Tilu music and pencak silat movements.
The most widely accessible album of Jaipongan outside of Indonesia is Tonggeret by singer Idjah Hadidjah and Gugum Gumbira's Jugala orchestra, released in 1987, and re-released as West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and other Popular Music by Nonesuch/Elektra Records.
Gugum Gumbira is a Sundanese composer, orchestra leader, choreographer, and entrepreneur from Bandung, Indonesia.
To do this, he spent twelve years studying rural, festival dance music and the result was jaipongan.
Jaipongan includes revived indigenous arts, like gamelan, but it also does not ignore Western music completely despite the ban on rock and roll.
Ronggeng probably has existed in Java since ancient times, the bas reliefs in the Karmawibhanga section on Borobudur display the scene of a travelling entertainment troupe with musicians and female dancers.
The cassette industry and its boom in Indonesia helped popularize jaipongan greatly and promoted regional styles rather than hurt them.
The song repertoire of jaipongan is varied, and that is why it is better understood as an intertwined performance style of music and dance.
The idiophonic accompaniment of jaipongan may also include a few saron or a gegung (an L-shaped row of gong chimes), and often a gambang (xylophone).
[citation needed] When jaipongan was first introduced in 1974, there was a lack of acceptable music in the area of West Java—Sunda more specifically.
It gained popularity instantly because it was a completely non-western form of music that the government accepted and promoted.
The sexual nature of the songs was taken from the idea of prostitution and was then elevated to make it a more elegant, civilized part of art.
Never before had men and women danced or interacted together in promiscuous sexually explicit or suggestive ways in performance in Indonesia.
When the government discovered the sexual nature of the songs and dances, they looked to curb the popularity of jaipongan, but it had already become the music of the people and their efforts were thwarted.
Jaipongan was a way for the Sundanese people to take back their culture from Western ideas and rid themselves of the colonial Dutch influences.
It focused on love, money, and agriculture, and as the world became filled with more turmoil, it became a vehicle for moral, political spiritual, and social awareness.
With the cassette's release international popularity rose and helped to create a larger musical industry in Sunda and Indonesia at large.
Music and dance schools were created to preserve the art form and history of the Sundanese people.
Although the genre is most popular in Asia, there are jaipongan dance troupes and musical ensembles in Europe in addition to the United States (like Harsanari of San Francisco, California) and throughout other parts of the world.
[3] The ban attempt didn't succeed and jaipongan remains a very popular underground genre associated with erotic and rebellious power instead.
Jaipongan songs have been taken and set to Mr. Bean, a character created by Rowan Atkinson, and other modern popular cultural references in YouTube videos.
[citation needed] Music videos and performances of Tonggeret by Idijah Hadijah as well as other famous artists can be seen on YouTube and also can be heard and referenced in use by Indian film songs.
There is also a Jean Hellwig film on popular dancing in West Java, from 1989, with accompanying book and jaipongan chapter called Sundanese Pop Culture Alive.