If you are interested in tourism village based on local culture, you can take Bobung tourism village as your vacation destination selection. Bobung tourism village is located in Putat village, Patuk, Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta. It is about 30 km away from the city center of Yogyakarta. This village has been becoming wooden batik craft center since 2001, started by the local custom that holds often traditional ceremony on the harvest time. In this ceremony, the local people will have Pandji maskdance for expressing their gratitude to God because as his blessing.
Pandji dance has been elaborated in this village in 1960. Pandji dance is a typical dance whis has been spreaded by Sunan Kalijaga in order to spread islamic religion. Starting by the need of the mask for holding that ceremony, the local people initiated to produce their own mask. As the time goes by, a mask doesn’t only become the dancing accessories, but it is also invented into a room decoration so it attract the people interest for having it. As a consequence, there are many villagers who want to be craftsman because of the high demand of the mask from other city. It is written down that there are more than 400 craftsmans in this Bobung Putat Tourism village
The material used to create this mask is Sengon wood and Pule wood. Both wood isn’t taken without any reason. Sengon wood is a moderately corse but even texture and it’s durable. In other hand, Pule wood is softer, it is withish so it could be easily created. However it need long time to grow Sengon wood. By each characteristic, both woods are combined to produce a beautiful and valuable batik wood mask.
The craftsman always gives an innovation in every single batik wood production. Batik wood doesn’t only use to create a mask, but it can also use to create other kind of souvenirs like key chain, tray, puppet, and so on. You can also enjoy seeing the collection of Batik wood souvenir special gallery where the craftsman used to display his artwork. This tourism village offers us also educational tourism package. The visitor can see directly the process making of Batik wood craft and even try to join on its workshop. The other activity you can do is joining on the home visit activity where you can enjoy seeing and learning to make a craft directly in the craftsman’s house.
Other than observing the process of Batik wood craft making, in Bobung tourism village the visitor can also enjoy the traditional art performances. There are reog, jathilan, and absolutely Pandji maskdance, the traditional art performance which becomes the icon of Bobung Tourism village. This tourism village is easily accessible for public transportation or even personal vehicle. The route should be passed has been paved already. The facilities like toilet and homestay are available here.
